Governing Finance for Sustainability – Pathways Forward

This is the third in a series of roundtables on Governing Finance for Sustainability. Details on the first roundtable can be found here, and the second here.

  • Sustainability is moving up financial market agendas worldwide. A key aspect of this development is the growing acceptance that the linkages between finance, social cohesion and environmental stability are also a matter for those setting policies and frameworks for the financial system – in particular central banks and financial regulators.

    In parallel, the growing influence of central banks and regulators in response to the financial crisis has triggered debates whether the prevailing consensus on their mandates, governance and instruments remains fit for purpose. Questions around their objectives and targets, their independence and accountability, as well as their capacity to deal with a world that is radically different from the days when the current consensus was forged are illustrations for that.

    Against this background, we believe we are at an inflection point where past convictions on central banking and financial regulation are reviewed and where we have a significant opportunity to make sustainability a cornerstone of a new institutional architecture for the governance of financial markets that may emerge.

    We have started building a global community of thought leaders to explore and seize this opportunity with an initial roundtable in January 2019. Since then we have been carefully following the debate on governing finance in what we increasingly perceive to be a four-way nexus between growing risks in today’s financial and monetary systems, the power of central banks and financial regulators and challenges to that from many quarters, the rapidly growing relevance of sustainability considerations in governing finance, and the potentially disruptive impact of fintech.

    With this in mind, we have convened a follow-up roundtable in early July. The third roundtable in the series brought together a core group of thought leaders to distill the key insights from our engagements so far, to outline key recommendations for financial governance reform, and to define pathways towards their implementation.

  • Tuesday, 15 October, 2019
    8.30Arrival and coffee
    9.00
    Welcome and Introduction
    9.15Mapping Design Principles
    What are core principles for the governance of complex systems? To what extent is the current governance of finance aligned or misaligned with these principles? How can alignment be strengthened?
    10.15The Case for Reform
    What is the scope and what are the drivers for financial governance reform? What are push-backs to reform and what is our response?
    11.15Break
    11.45Governing Fintech
    What are the risks and opportunities of Fintech? What are the implications for financial governance?
    12.45Lunch
    13.30Emerging Practices
    What are emerging practices to further align financial governance with sustainability objectives? How far do they take us?
    14.30Towards Policy Coherence
    Beyond emerging practices what are required steps for central banks and financial regulators to ensure coherence with broader policy objectives?
    15.30Break
    16.00Driving Change
    What are pathways towards reform? Who are the key players?
    17.00Ambitions for 2020
    What do we want to achieve in 2020? How do we plan to get there?
    18.00Walk to Restaurant
    18.30Drinks
    19.30Dinner