The financial sector is one of the many players which need to strengthen their efforts to contribute to meaningful progress in achieving the SDGs. Dedicated impact investing has a special role to play in this. It can finance economic activities that reduce poverty, bring clean energy to underserved regions or strengthen education and health services. Impact investing can help to bring such solutions to scale.

Earlier this week SSF, jointly with Tameo Impact Fund Solutions, published the report “A Stocktake of Swiss Impact Investing” with the objective to provide detailed insights into volumes and structure of impact investing as it is implemented by Swiss asset managers today. The publication demonstrates that Switzerland is among the top 3 countries globally in terms of private market impact investment volumes. This strong position is a result of the long history Switzerland has in impact investing, with first microfinance investment products being offered in the early 2000s.

But besides looking at the state of impact investing today, the report more importantly aims to make recommendations on how to address barriers for further growth and thereby provides the basis for future collaborative efforts between different actors in the Swiss impact investing space.

SSF and Tameo were not the only organisations counting impact assets this month. This newsletter also highlights the global market sizing from GIIN and a Symbiotics publication that explores risk perception and bias in investments in emerging markets (see below in the reports section).

> Visit our website for more about these and other SSF activities

Market News

• The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) has launched a public consultation paper on voluntary guidance on the development of “transition-informed” indices to support the global transition to net zero.

• The Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) announced it hit its target of 500 TNFD Adopters at the COP16 in Cali Colombia on 24 October. Read the press release and see a full list of adopters here.

• A solution to help investors assess their exposure to nature and biodiversity-related risks was launched by Bloomberg. The tool provides investors with actionable insights to understand and manage their dependency on nature and the impact of their investments.

• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development hast published a deforestation disclosure guide for financial institutions, which outlines four essential steps: adopting deforestation-free finance guidance, carrying out deforestation-specific disclosure, integrating these risks into climate- and nature-related financial disclosures and transition plans, and striving for comprehensive, holistic disclosure.

• The University of Zurich has developed ChatReport and AskNature, two AI-powered tools that analyse company reports to assess their environmental impact based on the TCFD (ChatReport) or TNFD (askNature) recommendations. For each report, the tools return an assessment of climate-related respectively nature-related disclosures.

We are happy to welcome the following organisations as a new SSF member:

• Clarity AI (Service Provider)
• Swisspeers (Service Provider)
• Quanthome (Service Provider)
• Quantis (Service Provider)
• Toco (Service Provider)

The full list of our members and network partners, now standing at 261, can be found here.  

• SSF has updated its e-learning course: “Introduction to Sustainable Investing” This updated learning module walks you through the key drivers and principles of sustainable investing, the main implementation strategies as well as their adoption in Switzerland. It is suitable for Wealth managers, Asset Managers, and Asset Owners. The updated course is available in English.

• 11 December 2024, 17:00 – 18:30: Building Bridges Event - Credible climate transition plans across sectors" (more information)
• 12 December 2024, 10:00 – 11:30: Building Bridges Event - Swiss National Partner launch event: Championing impact investing in Switzerland (more information)

• 29 October 2024, Private Impact Investments: Schweiz weltweit unter den Top 3 Finanzplätzen, Swiss Fund Data
• 29 October 2024, Private Impact Investments: Schweiz weltweit unter den Top 3 Finanzplätzen, investrends.ch
• 29 October 2024, Schweiz weltweit unter den Top 3 Finanzplätzen bezüglich verwalteter Impact Investments, The Onliner
• 28 October, Genève dépassée par Zurich dans la finance durable (paywall), L'AGEFI
• 18 October 2024, Aktives Aktionariat als Treiber der Wertschöpfung (print only) Anlagewerkstatt – Beilage zur Schweizer Personalvorsorge
• 16 October 2024, Kirchen wollen ihr Geld mit gutem Gewissen anlegen, reformiert.
• 10 October 2024, Europa hat eine Riesenchance als Vorreiter, Lucerne Dialogue Magazine
• 2 October 2024, Première étude sur le marché suisse du crédit durable, Moneta
• 2 October 2024, Erste Schweizer Marktstudie zu nachhaltigen Krediten erschienen, Moneta
• 1 October 2024, From value to valuation – an economic case for sustainable finance (by Romain Leroy-Castillo, Director Projects), L’AGEFI Lux

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