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On the 6th of May, The Future Economy Network (FEN) and Future Leap hosted a morning event entitled “Green Financing for Greener cities” which was attended by a range of delegates. Before the event began, the attendees enjoyed some pre-sessional networking in small breakout rooms facilitated by the FEN team. This event was kindly sponsored by TLT.
Katherine Piper, Director of Partnerships at Future Leap, welcomed attendees to the event and highlighted the benefits of joining the network. Katherine also shared updates about the Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap as well as briefly running through plans for the Festival of Sustainable Business, in light of new Government guidance towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Speakers included:
James Vaccaro, CEO of Re:Pattern and Bankers for Net Zero Partner
Imogen Benson, Associate, TLT
Nick Robins, Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance, Grantham Research Institute
Amy Robinson, Corporate Projects Manager, Triodos Bank UK
The event highlighted the deeply interdependent relationship between the greening of businesses and where they access their finances. From place-based solutions where finance industries specifically target, and work with, place-based organisations, to innovating ways for banks to track their SME’s carbon footprint to ensure that those they are financing are in alignment with the climate target, the conversation covered some of the stickiest topics, and offered new approaches to greening finance.
How the finance industry invests, and who they invest in, was stressed as the single most important factor in determining their advancement towards achieving their sustainability goals. The more SME’s can begin making their businesses greener by having access to finance, the more the financial industry can themselves become greener, generating a positive feedback loop which we should desperately be ushering towards the side of sustainability.
Katherine closed the event, thanking the speakers and attendees, which without our events calendar would not be possible, with an extra special thank you to TLT for kindly sponsoring the Evolving Cities series.