In a world facing economic shocks, geopolitical upheaval and the climate crisis, the role of finance has never been more critical, or more contested. We asked whether the industry is retreating from sustainability, or ready to reset and rise to the challenge?

Ethical Finance Global 2025 brought together global leaders, for a milestone edition to explore the future of finance in an era of disruption.

Ethical Finance ASEAN 2025, delivered in partnership with the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers, advanced the themes of previous summits, exploring resilience, green innovation, and ASEAN’s role in global economic stability.

With the global finance sector grappling with a myriad of issues shaped by economic conditions, geopolitical events, evolving regulatory landscapes, and navigating elections in major economies, Ethical Finance Global 2024 considered these challenges and sought to inspire the finance sector to focus on progress, rather than procrastination, to meet global sustainability goals and combat climate change.

The summit began with a broad, macroeconomic look at the challenges the world faces, before exploring how corporates are responding to these issues. The summit then evaluated the progress made by countries and corporates in the transition toward a greener economy and finally how practical solutions for climate and nature are being developed.

This year’s virtual summit, marked the third edition of Ethical Finance ASEAN, delivered in partnership with the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers, brought together experts from across the globe to evaluate the current position and urgent need for scaling up sustainable finance in the ASEAN region.

As well as looking at the key outcomes from COP28 and expectations for COP29, Ethical Finance ASEAN 2024 tackled nature-based solutions, financing the energy transition, the role of SMEs in greening the financial chain, and explored efforts in moving the Islamic finance industry from Halal to Tayyib.

On the one side, its very existence has become a new political battleground. On the other, it has come to be viewed as a sticking plaster discouraging more comprehensive reforms of the financial system.

Our annual in-person summit Ethical Finance Global 2023 tackled these issues and more on Wednesday 20th September 2023 in Edinburgh, hosted by NatWest Group.

Held virtually on 23rd March 2023, EF ASEAN 2023 tackled the theme of transition, exploring how financial institutions can support Southeast Asian economies in their transition towards Net Zero.

We were pleased to again partner with the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers for the virtual Ethical Finance ASEAN 2023 summit, following 2022’s inaugural Ethical Finance ASEAN summit.

Following the success of our South East Asia regional showcase at Ethical Finance Global 2021, the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) was delighted to co-host the inaugural Ethical Finance ASEAN 2022 with the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers (AICB).

This virtual event, was held on Wednesday 29 June 2022, and presented a unique opportunity to hear from experts on sustainable and responsible finance in the ASEAN region and beyond. The summit is themed “ESG in a Volatile World – Profit, Purpose or Politics?”

Held virtually between Tuesday 8th – Thursday 10th June 2021, the theme for Ethical Finance 2021 was “Financing a Sustainable Future: Climate and Beyond”. As well as looking at macroeconomic issues impacting global markets, we had specific sessions on topics including the SDGs, climate, nature, the ‘S’ in ESG and leadership. In line with our focus on global inclusion we had dedicated sessions curated with regional stakeholders bringing in views from Africa, Australasia, South Asia and South East Asia.

Ethical Finance 2020 explored how the financial services sector can deliver universally supported targets such as the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, as well as supporting economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Themed around embedding sustainability into investment models and new ethical investment paradigms, Ethical Finance 2019 brought together banks, asset managers, faith investors, mission-driven endowments, charities and family offices to examine practical solutions to promote sustainability in banking and finance.

Ethical Finance 2018 was themed around regaining trust and demonstrating impact in the finance sector, and was delivered in partnership with UKIFC and Responsible Investor, and supported by the Scottish Government, United Nations Development Programme, Her Majesty’s Government and Royal Bank of Scotland.