5 Questions for 2025
To kick off 2025, the SFG Team and Board (the Strategy and Surveillance Committee) have prepared a special Interview of the Month which dives into what we accomplished in 2024, what we learned, the trends we are watching, and where SFG is going in 2025. Happy reading!
How did the SFG community develop in 2024?
The SFG community got larger and stronger in 2024. We gained 10 institutional members (20% increase) and 46 individual members (11% increase) over the course of 2024. In addition, we made some adjustments to our programming at the suggestion of our membership and these changes have been well-received by the community. We maintained our networking activities but shifted away from classic “one-way presentation” event formats and built opportunities for peer exchange amongst our members. This has allowed practitioners to exchange their experiences and leverage collective knowledge. We also worked to secure SFG members access and discounts to other events in and around Switzerland. We know financial professionals have busy calendars so we are focused on streamlining our offering so that members get the most out of their membership without being overloaded with content.
What were SFG’s biggest wins?
Outside of the strength and vibrancy of your community, our biggest wins this year were related to our Impact Themes. In particular, we were able to advance our work on Peace Finance significantly. Riding the momentum of successfully launching the Peace Finance Hub in collaboration with TrustWorks Global at the end of 2023, we developed a new partnership with Finance for Peace and PeaceNexus Foundation on conflict risk. Together, we have begun a research project that will help investors to identify, quantify, and eventually price conflict-related risks in their portfolios and take steps to appropriately mitigate and manage these risks through their investee companies. We also ran several events aimed at raising awareness of company and investor responsibility in conflict-affected states.
In addition to our work on Peace, we launched a Nature Finance Hub at Building Bridges 2024. This microsite provides the latest data, insights, tools, and key actors in the field of nature finance all in one convenient place. This resource will feed into broader action on nature finance in the Swiss ecosystem.
Another big win for SFG was getting out into the community and making our voice heard. Our Managing Director and members of the Board spoke publicly at over 35 events in 2024. In addition, we participated in countless other closed-door sessions as experts and contributors. We have a key role to play in thought leadership and plan to continue pushing for an equitable, sustainable financial system.
What did SFG learn in 2024 and over the past five years?
This year we saw clearly that the transition to a sustainable finance system is well underway and while there are certainly headwinds coming our way, there is no going back. When we reflect on the last five years we have seen a distinct shift in how the finance community approaches sustainability. There is less of a need to “make the case” and more of a focus on practical implementation. A level of mainstreaming has occurred, for example, now every major finance association in Switzerland has a sustainability person or team. Data has improved significantly, regulation has advanced, capacity has been built within institutions, and collaboration among investor groups has increased. And importantly, our understanding of the various approaches to and applications of sustainability from ESG integration to impact generation have gotten more nuanced. Of course, there is still a long way to go but these are all extremely positive developments.
What is on the horizon for SFG in 2025?
We have some big administrative changes coming in 2025 – namely a new office and a digital management system that will streamline and enhance interactions with SFG for members and the community at large. We are particularly thrilled about the new office as we will be sharing it with a group of like-minded organizations all committed to sustainable finance including Building Bridges, Swiss Sustainable Finance, and the SDG Impact Finance Initiative.
On the content-side, we are working on an extremely interesting project that aims to drive capital to impact at the local level. Geneva is a uniquely international community, which means that SFG spends a lot of time thinking about the global issues that Geneva can influence, but we also serve and are firmly rooted in our local Geneva community and we are looking forward to exploring models that will make change right here in our backyard.
We will advance work on our core impact themes (peace, nature and gender) and will continue to run networking and peer-sharing events but hope to add a few more in-depth training opportunities to the event roster for our members.
What trends are sustainable finance trends SFG is watching in 2025?
All eyes are on the US right now. There have been stumbling blocks in the US for years but we expect to see these get more difficult in the next 4 years. The question will be how other jurisdictions, like Europe, react and step up. This will also affect collaborative alliances on common investor objectives and joint engagement, for example, we are already seeing a number of exits from US-based institutions from Climate Action 100+ and GFANZ. In addition, we are experiencing a lack of momentum in key multilateral spaces like the climate and biodiversity COPs which we anticipate will only get worse with a more adversarial USA.
The counterpoint to these difficult conditions is the fact that cost of renewable energies continue to decrease. The combination of growing market demand and technological advancements has enhanced the profitability of green investments which now make sense economically. This means that the transition is now driven not only by environmental imperatives but also economic realities. The question is not if the transition will happen, it is the pace. We think transition finance will continue to be a key theme in 2025 as it was in 2024.
In Europe, we expect to see a refinement and simplification of regulations. Lessons from the first years of the SFDR and CSRD are now being considered and adjustments will be made to ensure these directives are fit for purpose and are achieving what they were intended for.
Finally, on other key sustainable finance themes – nature finance will continue to develop as more financial institutions build their understanding of the theme. We will also be watching for developments on social disclosures specifically the work of the TISFD, which now has a governance structure in place and will begin work in 2025.
