The Chartered Banker Institute today welcomed the publication of the UK Government’s updated Green Finance Strategy with its greater emphasis on the importance of capacity and capability-building to support the UK’s net zero ambitions, and its recognition of the key and unique role played by UK-based professional bodies.
This latest version of the Green Finance Strategy outlines the UK’s plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The strategy mainstreams climate and environmental factors as a financial imperative, with an emphasis on mobilising private finance for clean and resilient growth and cementing UK leadership in green finance. However, as the Sustainable Finance Education Charter reveals in its new report on the UK’s Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) skills set in the financial services sector, UK employers, educators and the government need to do more to secure the UK’s future as a global sustainable finance centre, and to deliver the commitments made by financial services firms.
Research conducted by 14 leading financial chartered and professional bodies to support the development of the UK government’s recently revised Green Finance Strategy (representing more than a million finance professionals) highlights four key findings that reveal that:
- the majority of respondents do not consider their organisations to be highly prepared for future requirements in green and sustainable finance (a cause for concern given the UK’s net zero ambitions and the sustainability commitments and strategies of many financial services employers)
- the majority of respondents felt their organisation was not targeting training budgets towards training employees in green and sustainable finance to support their organisation’s sustainability strategy
- the green and sustainable finance skills gap is wider than the knowledge gap
- finally, capacity and capability-building are a higher priority in other countries and the UK may fall behind if this isn’t addressed by employers, professional bodies, educators and the UK government
Professional bodies are already playing their part, as demonstrated in the Sustainable Finance Education Charter Second Progress Report. Signatories are incorporating ESG into initial and continuing professional development programmes.
There is a collective responsibility of the global community, including banking, finance and professional services sectors to deliver society’s goals as expressed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework. Indeed, the Charter has recently announced its formal name change to better reflect the need for professional bodies to engage with our members on issues beyond climate, including on biodiversity, nature-based finance and social sustainability.
Welcoming the publication of the UK Government’s Green Finance Strategy, Simon Thompson, chief executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and chair of the Sustainable Finance Education Charter, said: “Our research shows that UK financial services firms are not investing sufficiently in the capacity and capabilities required to support their sustainability commitments and the UK’s net zero and other sustainability goals, especially as these evolve. Other countries place a higher priority on upskilling their financial services sector, which threatens the UK’s position as a global hub for green and sustainable finance. I warmly welcome the new Green Finance Strategy and especially its heightened focus on skills, therefore, and look forward to working with the UK government, finance sector firms, professional bodies and others to raise our ambitions and build sustainable finance capacity and capabilities in the UK and globally.”
Collectively the UK’s professional bodies have the appetite, expertise, and resources – and seek to encourage other bodies to join the Charter to work together to support its objectives. The hope iz that professional bodies and their members everywhere recognise this shared, global challenge, and the strategic, commercial and moral imperative to develop clean, resilient and prosperous economies that work for all.
