Earlier this month, Ismail Ertürk, Director of Social Responsibility and lecturer in banking, played rapporteur for the Sustainable Finance track at ABIS' (Academy of Business in Society) 17th colloquium in Brussels.
Ismail presented to the Colloquium the key issues discussed at the Sustainable Finance track and commented that banks and asset managers can play a disciplining role on companies to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals.
During the event there were three roundtable discussions based on the Dutch Bank ING’s presentation on “Aligning financial flows with the Paris Agreement goals”, the Accounting firm Mazars’s presentation on “Sustainable success of mid-market companies” and the asset management company Candriam’s presentation on “UN Sustainable Development Goals and Environmental, Social and Governance impact indicators”.
"ING has a loan portfolio of about €500 euro and they would like to steer the loan portfolio towards achieving the goals set by the Paris Agreement on global warming," said Ismail. "A significant amount of work on research and modelling now allow ING to better control the impact of their loan portfolio on climate change."
Candriam, asset management firm, voiced the asset management industry’s need for more standardised and comparable Environmental, Societal and Governance reporting by companies.
At the colloquium, other tracks were on circular economy and digitalisation. Further details are available here>>