Submitted by H. Hutton on Wed, 27/09/2017 - 16:46
27 September 2017 – The European Commission’s High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Sustainable Finance, of which CISL is the only academic member, has seen two important changes in EU policy that implement recommendations published in the HLEG interim report.
The HLEG group was convened in January 2017 to provide expert advice to the European Commission on developing a comprehensive EU strategy on sustainable finance. Two landmark changes to EU policy have now been announced, following the HLEG Interim Report that was published for consultation in July 2017.
The first change will unlock the ability of the public sector to invest in energy efficiency. Until now there has been a barrier to progress in this area due to the accounting methods used, that have meant that long term investments in energy efficiency were recorded as a contribution to public debt.
The second policy change sets to mobilise financial regulators and supervisors to take action to ensure that the financial system is protected from environmental-related risks, and that capital is seeking truly sustainable risk-adjusted investments.
The HLEG seeks to take a pan-European approach to steering private and public capital towards sustainable investments and protecting the stability of the financial system from environmental risks. Alongside its membership of this group, CISL is also a Knowledge Partner to the G20 Green Finance Study Group and a member of the UK Green Finance Taskforce.
