Déclaration de Place: a new step towards green and sustainable finance
THE PARIS FINANCIAL MARKET MOBILIZES TO TAKE A NEW STEP IN FAVOR OF GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE FINANCE
Paris, July 2, 2019 – On the occasion of the Marketplace meeting held with the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, the main professional organizations and federations representing the Paris Financial Marketplace (ASF-Association Française des Sociétés Financières, AFG-Association Française de la Gestion Financière, FBF-Fédération Bancaire Française, FFA-Fédération Française de l’Assurance, France Invest-Association des Investisseurs pour la croissance, Paris EUROPLACE and Finance for Tomorrow) today announced, in a joint declaration, new commitments to combat climate change and contribute to the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
At COP 21 in 2015, Paris was the first financial center to collectively declare its adherence to the scientific consensus on the impact of greenhouse gas emissions and to take the necessary steps for the financial industry to make its contribution to accelerating the transformation to a low-carbon economy.
Since then, Paris financial market players have stepped up their individual and collective initiatives, such as the implementation of ambitious sectoral policies on fossil fuels, the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into investment strategies, and the creation of Finance for Tomorrow, the driving force behind the mobilization of the Paris financial market as a branch of Paris EUROPLACE.
In the first half of the year, France was once again the leading issuer of green bonds, with over 13 billion euros of issues. The public SRI and Greenfin labels are growing every year, with 222 labelled funds representing €57 billion in assets under management, and 30 labelled funds with total assets under management of €7 billion, demonstrating Paris’s leadership in green finance.
Aware of the urgency of the challenges posed by the climate crisis, the Paris financial center is taking a new step forward and announcing new commitments to help achieve the goal set by France and other European Union countries of carbon neutrality by 2050:
– Encouraging its members to adopt a coal strategy, with a global timetable for divestment, and to report on this in their extra-financial reporting from the 2020 financial year.
– Continuing methodological work in collaboration with supervisory authorities on assessing portfolio exposure to climate risks and aligning investment portfolios with a 2°C scenario. The Paris financial center will promote the dissemination and open-source standardization of these methodologies;
– Monitoring commitments through the creation of an observatory of the achievements and actions of Paris financial center players in the field of green and sustainable finance. Equipped with a scientific committee, the observatory will be under the joint governance of the main professional federations (AFG, FBF, FFA, France Invest) and Finance For Tomorrow.
The success of the ecological transition can only be achieved by supporting economic players in transforming their energy mix and business models. Through its commitments, the Paris marketplace confirms its pioneering role in this global transition and sends a strong signal of mobilization to public and private players. Its members are convinced that the transformation of the financial industry in favor of a sustainable growth model is a guarantee of quality and performance, and contributes to the attractiveness of the Paris marketplace in global competition.
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Read the press release from the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance
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