Wednesday 30 March 2022

UN launches new chief financial officers’ coalition to boost sustainable investment

UN launches new chief financial officers’ coalition to boost sustainable investment

The UN Global Impact, the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, has launched a new coalition for chief financial officers (CFOs) to drive more private sector investment towards sustainable development.

The Chief Financial Officers' Coalition for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a platform where global CFOs and other corporate officers can collaborate with investors, financial institutions and UN agencies to develop principles, frameworks and recommendations to integrate SDGs in corporate finance.

The CFO Coalition for the SDGs believes global engagement and collaboration are critical to closing the financial gap needed to meet the SDGs.

It aims to leverage commitments from CFOs in the Coalition to direct trillions of corporate investments towards the SDGs and create a $10 trillion (£7.6tn) market for SDG-directed finance by 2030 and expand the CFO Leadership Group from 70 participants to 100 by 2022.

UN estimates suggest the world will need to spend between $3 trillion (£2.28tn) and $5 trillion (£3.8tn) annually to meet the SDGs by 2030 and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased that by an additional $2 trillion (£1.5tn) a year.

Jerome Lavigne-Delville, Senior Advisor, Sustainable Finance and Co-Lead of the CFO Coalition for the SDGs at the UN Global Compact said: “CFOs have a leading role to play in setting and aligning sustainability and financial targets. This will not only help us secure a better future but it’s also good business — research increasingly shows companies who commit to sustainability targets regularly outperform those that do not.

“The CFO Coalition for the SDGs is at the vanguard of a new movement which recognises CFOs as the architects of long term value creation.”

The 70 CFOs who are part of the CFO Leadership Group have already committed to collectively invest more than $500 billion (£382bn) in support of the SDGs.

Alberto De Paoli, Chief Financial Officer, Enel Group and Co-chair of the CFO Leadership Group added: “The launch of the CFO Coalition for the SDGs represents a new milestone in our journey, which we began in December 2019 together with a small group of CFOs who shared a vision to boost the integration of sustainability within business operations.

“With this new phase, we aim to engage thousands of CFOs, to scale up our global community, that will play a critical role in mobilising trillions in corporate investments to close the financial gap needed to meet the SDGs and create sustainable shared value for all.”

Written by

Bruna Pinhoni

Trending Articles