The UN Environment Inquiry, which ran from 2015 to 2021, was intended to support actions by identifying best practices and exploring financial market policy and regulatory innovations that would support the development of a green financial system.
The UN Environment Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System mapped the practice and potential for advancing such an alignment. Its global report, The Financial System We Need, reflects an in-depth analysis of practice in more than 15 countries and collaborative research across critical sectors and issues, such as banking, insurance, institutional investment and capital markets, captured in over 70 working papers. It describes a “quiet revolution” as sustainability factors are incorporated into the rules that govern the financial system. Much of this innovation has taken place at the national level, providing the platform for new forms of international cooperation. This convergence of national-level innovation with international frameworks, goals and ambitions provides the opportunity to create a new pathway for promoting green finance in the broadest sense.
In moving from design to delivery, the Inquiry supported the scale-up, broadening, and exchange of policy options, advanced new critical research areas, and continued its national, regional, and international engagements to embed sustainability into financial architecture.
