UN Principles for Responsible Banking Power Roundtable hosted at EY
At a private Power Roundtable designed to foster a collaborative – rather than competitive – atmosphere, UN Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) signatories shared their experiences with financial institutions considering becoming signatories. The event featured 5 UAE-based banks, 4 global banks and 3 banks based in the UK and Australia.
At the event, current signatories highlighted the benefits from a comprehensive framework that aligns with science-based targets, offers engagement with credible third-party alliances, and promotes top-down engagement and education for board members and decision makers through UN-sponsored working groups.
Experience shows that this framework has helped financial institutions in setting credible climate transitions plans and in engaging their clients on this journey, where they would have otherwise struggled with setting their own measurement tools and statistics. The costs of PRB implementation were discussed to be manageable for smaller banks – as they are for largest institutions – as smaller banks are more agile in this context.
Regional challenges and views were also considered, such as the dependance of the region’s GDP on oil and gas. PRB signatories shared their approach to facing these challenges within their own jurisdiction. A solution was hiring non-banking expert teams of scientists, engineers, and academics to offer robust decisions aligned with the Paris Agreement targets.
Other key decisions included selecting projects to finance, reinvesting proceeds from oil and gas projects into ESG-focused projects instead to offset their carbon footprints and creating innovation centers for start-ups and companies to provide investable ESG solutions. Some of the key lessons learned from signatories regarding the incorporation of the Principles were that it has to be from the top down.
A key engagement and education tool offered is the PRB Academy, which focuses on sharing knowledge and skills to professionals as they develop ESG consideration in risk and asset management. The Academy is also extending its global curriculum to make it regionally relevant and to cover nature and biodiversity finance alongside its climate finance curriculum. Emphasis was also made on the significance of public scrutiny, and COP28 will be that for the region; therefore, it is essential that institutions align their operations accordingly.
Learn more about the Path to COP28 campaign, and how it is driving action from finance at this year’s summit at pathtocop28.com.
UN Principles for Responsible Banking Power Roundtable hosted at EY
At a private Power Roundtable designed to foster a collaborative – rather than competitive – atmosphere, UN Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) signatories shared their experiences with financial institutions considering becoming signatories. The event featured 5 UAE-based banks, 4 global banks and 3 banks based in the UK and Australia.
At the event, current signatories highlighted the benefits from a comprehensive framework that aligns with science-based targets, offers engagement with credible third-party alliances, and promotes top-down engagement and education for board members and decision makers through UN-sponsored working groups.
Experience shows that this framework has helped financial institutions in setting credible climate transitions plans and in engaging their clients on this journey, where they would have otherwise struggled with setting their own measurement tools and statistics. The costs of PRB implementation were discussed to be manageable for smaller banks – as they are for largest institutions – as smaller banks are more agile in this context.
Regional challenges and views were also considered, such as the dependance of the region’s GDP on oil and gas. PRB signatories shared their approach to facing these challenges within their own jurisdiction. A solution was hiring non-banking expert teams of scientists, engineers, and academics to offer robust decisions aligned with the Paris Agreement targets.
Other key decisions included selecting projects to finance, reinvesting proceeds from oil and gas projects into ESG-focused projects instead to offset their carbon footprints and creating innovation centers for start-ups and companies to provide investable ESG solutions. Some of the key lessons learned from signatories regarding the incorporation of the Principles were that it has to be from the top down.
A key engagement and education tool offered is the PRB Academy, which focuses on sharing knowledge and skills to professionals as they develop ESG consideration in risk and asset management. The Academy is also extending its global curriculum to make it regionally relevant and to cover nature and biodiversity finance alongside its climate finance curriculum. Emphasis was also made on the significance of public scrutiny, and COP28 will be that for the region; therefore, it is essential that institutions align their operations accordingly.
Learn more about the Path to COP28 campaign, and how it is driving action from finance at this year’s summit at pathtocop28.com.