Time for Action: SFG’s New Strategy for 2026–2030
Since 2008, Sustainable Finance Geneva has provided a trusted space for people working on sustainable finance to learn, debate, and connect. In that time, we have seen the topic evolve, change, mainstream. Eighteen years later, we continue to adapt our work to the needs of the community and the moment, and that’s why we spent the past several months reconsidering what our role should look like through to the end of the decade. And now we’re proud to share the result: our strategy for 2026–2030.
We’re moving from advocating for sustainable finance to making it a reality, one project and partnership at a time.
Why we’re making this shift
Interest in sustainable finance has never moved in a straight line. It rises and falls with market conditions and political winds, and right now we find ourselves in a more challenging part of that cycle, but we must not forget how far we have come.
When SFG was founded in 2009, we were emerging from the financial crisis. Sustainable and responsible investing was a niche concern, few tools or data existed to support it, and regulation was almost entirely absent. Our early mandate was straightforward: build awareness and knowledge where very little existed.
Since then, the landscape has changed considerably. Basic sustainable investing practices are now mainstream, there is far more data, more support tools, and more regulation. While the field is contending with politically driven backlash, the numbers don’t lie. Sustainable fund assets have grown from under $1 trillion in 2019 to $3.5 trillion today. Green, social, and sustainability bonds now total roughly $7 trillion cumulatively. Transition investment reached a record $2.3 trillion in 2025 — still only about a third of what’s required, but a record, nonetheless.
The conclusion we draw from this is that we must continue building a track record that is concrete and self-sustaining, rather than contingent on a favourable political climate. That is what underpins our new strategy. In addition, the strategy focuses on two important tenets: making our impact tangible and putting Geneva’s unique ecosystem to work.
From concept to concrete impact
Over the next four years, SFG will focus on mobilising private capital for the transition here in Geneva and in the wider Romandie — work already under way through Impact Pour Genève, an initiative connecting investors with local transition projects that offer genuine financial, environmental, and social value.
We also intend to establish Geneva as a centre of excellence for blended and innovative finance. That means leveraging the deep impact expertise in International Geneva and strengthening relationships with the region’s asset owners — pension funds, family offices, foundations — so that capital flows to where it is needed most.
Putting Geneva’s ecosystem to work
The second thread running through the strategy is equally deliberate: draw on what makes Geneva distinctive. Few cities combine a sophisticated financial centre with the concentration of multilateral institutions, humanitarian organizations, and diplomatic expertise found here. Our strategy commits SFG to leveraging that expertise to inform how we go about investing in emerging themes like peace and AI.
We’ll also be more active locally: joining and supporting Geneva-based organizations and events, reinforcing relationships with local actors and authorities, and bringing successful models from other jurisdictions here to test and replicate. Geneva’s position as a global sustainable finance hub isn’t guaranteed — other centres are investing heavily to claim that ground — and this strategy reflects our commitment to ensuring Geneva can lay that claim credibly.
Still a community at heart
None of this changes what SFG has always been at its core: a community. Since 2009, that community has grown from just over 100 members to over 400. We’ll keep creating spaces for members to connect, exchange, and challenge each other’s thinking, and we’re working to bring in voices that haven’t traditionally been part of the sustainable finance conversation. Growing and diversifying that community is, in many ways, what will make the rest of the strategy possible.
An invitation to collaborate
This strategy isn’t a document we plan on keeping on the shelf. It signals a direction we’re asking our members, partners, and the broader Geneva community to help us build. If you have ideas, or want to be part of what comes next, we’d welcome hearing from you.
A sustainable financial system won’t be built on good intentions alone. It will be built here, in our community, one project at a time… and we’re ready to get to work.
