Partnership between United Nations Environment and the global financial sector to promote sustainable finance
The Rising Tide report maps the current state of ocean finance revealing trends in lending, underwriting and investment activities which impact the ocean. It reveals the frameworks and financial instruments that are successfully addressing ocean sustainability and highlights new opportunities and gaps in the market. It looks across five major ocean-linked sectors chosen for their established…
UNEP FI and the European Banking Federation (EBF) have launched a unique report assessing the extent to which the EU Taxonomy on Sustainable Activities could be applied to core banking products for labelling or disclosure purposes. This report is the result of a project with 26 major banks, seven banking associations and five observing organisations…
This report analyses the climate change related risks countries in the Arab region are facing such as water scarcity, rising sea levels, drought, land degradation and desertification. It sheds light on the existing strategies and policies on climate adaptation and mitigation in the region, and emphasizes the importance of sustainable finance resources in transitioning to…
22 leading insurers and reinsurers from across the globe worked with UNEP FI to develop the first comprehensive guidance for the insurance industry to identify and disclose the impact of climate change on their businesses. This report represents the largest collaborative effort by market participants to pilot some of the most challenging recommendations of the…
The UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance has released the Inaugural 2025 Target Setting Protocol after consultation on the draft, issued in October 2020. The Alliance is a group of 33 of the world’s largest investors that have committed to reducing carbon emissions in their portfolio – worth over $5.1 trillion in AUM – to net-zero…
In the recovery from the global coronavirus pandemic, government spending and recovery packages will play a pivotal role in underpinning economies, jobs and people’s livelihoods. These measures, already in the trillions of dollars, need not only to be effective in restarting the economy, but also in creating a sustainable economy of the future. This includes…
In the last year, the world has seen an unprecedented acceleration towards a net-zero economy. Governments, companies, financial institutions, cities and regions are joining forces and ‘racing to zero’, aiming to entirely transform the energy system – in just three decades. To date, more than half of the world’s GDP, or almost USD 46 trillion,…
The Collective Commitment to Climate Action (CCCA) is an ambitious global banking sector initiative supporting the transition to a net zero economy by 2050. It brings together a leadership group of 38 banks from across all six continents who have committed to align their portfolios with the global climate goal to limit warming to well-below…
The Reporting Guidance supports signatories of the PRB with reporting on their implementation of the Principles. The Guidance for Assurance Providers: Providing Limited Assurance for Reporting aims at assisting assurance providers with undertaking limited assurance on PRB reporting, and at harmonizing the assurance approach and procedures for signatory banks.
Our foundational commitment as members of the United Nations-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (the Alliance) is to fully decarbonize our portfolios to contribute to global efforts to avoid a global average temperature increase above 1.5°C, consistent with our fiduciary duty. This will be achieved by inducing reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from companies in which…
Beyond the Horizon: New Tools and Frameworks for Transition Risk Assessments from UNEP FI’s TCFD Banking Programme Thirty-nine global financial institutions from six continents participated in UNEP FI’s second TCFD banking programme. Through this yearlong engagement, the participating banks collaborated with climate risk experts and each other to improve financial assessments of transition risk. In…
From Disclosure to Action: Applying TCFD principles throughout financial institutions Recent reports from the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) indicate how the financial sector has increasingly recognized climate risk as a financial risk. Financial institutions must respond to the threat of climate change by identifying, assessing,…
There is an urgent need to transition to economies that embed circularity and are aligned with global sustainable consumption and production goals. Financial institutions have a critical role to play and can take practical steps to finance the transition. UNEP’s report Financing Circularity: Demystifying Finance for the Circular Economy outlines how the financial sector can…
UNEP FI and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) have developed a TCFD Playbook to serve as a resource for firms at different stages of their TCFD journey, with support from EY. The organisations conducted a joint initiative to assist banks and other financial institutions in their efforts to strengthen climate risk disclosures by convening…
This 3-year progress report provides an update on how the Good Growth Partnership is cultivating sustainability in commodity supply chains, The Good Growth Partnership convenes a wide range of stakeholders and initiatives throughout soy, beef and palm oil supply chains to reduce deforestation and enable sustainable development. It joins forces with national and regional leaders…
Using hindsight and foresight: Enhancing the insurance industry’s assessment of climate change futures Over the past eight months, 22 leading insurers and reinsurers from across the globe (“the pilot group”) have been collaborating under the auspices of UN Environment Programme’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative (PSI) to explore and pilot methodologies that insurers can use towards implementing the recommendations of the Financial…
Charting a New Climate: State-of-the-art tools and data for banks to assess credit risks and opportunities from physical climate change impacts Charting a New Climate is a report on physical climate risks and opportunities from Phase II of its Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Banking Programme with climate risk advisory and analytics firm,…
2 September 2020
UNEP FI has partnered with EIT Climate-KIC to develop a series of thought leadership papers that aims to inspire financial actors worldwide to move from risk to alignment, challenge current assumptions around climate alignment and develop ideas and concepts on how alignment can best be achieved. We hope to encourage stakeholders that a proactive climate…
Five years after the Paris Agreement, along with IPCC’s call for urgent action to prevent climate change catastrophe in the coming decade, 2020-21 has been billed as a key year for climate action. The COVID-19 crisis this year has marked a point of transformation for our economy and society by demonstrating how remarkable and rapid…
This report aims to present the survey results of “How the Banks of Latin America and the Caribbean (in Spanish, ALC) incorporate climate change in their risk management,” which aligns with the first global initiative exploring what regional banks are doing to integrate dimensions of climate change in their strategy and management.