Green financing is to increase level of financial flows (from banking, micro-credit, insurance and investment) from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to sustainable development priorities. A key part of this is to better manage environmental and social risks, take up opportunities that bring both a decent rate of return and environmental benefit and deliver greater accountability.
Green financing could be promoted through changes in countries’ regulatory frameworks, harmonizing public financial incentives, increases in green financing from different sectors, alignment of public sector financing decision-making with the environmental dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals, increases in investment in clean and green technologies, financing for sustainable natural resource-based green economies and climate smart blue economy, increase use of green bonds, and so on.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Green Financing
UN Environment has been working with countries, financial regulators and finance sector to align financial systems to the 2030 sustainable development agenda – to direct financial flows to support the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals. At the core of today’s globalized economy are financial markets through which banks and investors allocate capital to dierent sectors. The capital allocated today will shape ecosystems and the production and consumption patterns of tomorrow.
The main areas for the current work on green financing are:
- Supporting public sector on creating enabling environment
- Promoting public-private partnerships on financing mechanisms such as green bonds
- Capacity building of community enterprises on micro-credit
UN Environment through its resource efficiency programme will offer countries the service of reviewing their policy and regulatory environment for the financing system and developing sustainable finance roadmaps, and assisting central banks, regulators on how to best improve the regulatory framework of domestic financial markets to shape the way and supporting multi-country policy initiatives at sub-regional, regional and global level. UN Environment will build on current initiatives such as private climate finance and will work with policy makers and private sector leaders to connect to green economy initiatives. UN Environment will also catalyze the policy action that inspires and informs both public and private investors.
Partnerships
Multi-stakeholder partnerships will be promoted to include major actors in financial markets, banks, investors, micro-credit entities, insurance companies along with public sector.
