Delivering the sustainable finance system the world needs
At Aviva we’re incredibly proud to be promoting the vital reorientation of capital away from short-term thinking and towards more sustainable financial markets. As a global insurer and investor, we’re acutely aware that the investments we make today will influence the world we live in tomorrow, and we’re in this for the long term. Our ancestors made good decisions and this is why we can trace our business back to 1696.
Much has already been done by governments and the UN to align private finance with sustainable development and to highlight the collaboration required with the private sector.
Driven by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Agreement and the Financing for Development (FFD) Addis Ababa Action Agenda, regional and state actors have started to examine how the policy and regulatory levers under their control can be used to direct private financial flows towards more sustainable outcomes. However, these initiatives represent the beginning, not the end, of the legislative and regulatory changes that we need in order to deliver meaningful sustainable change in the financial system.
To make these changes we need a globally coordinated strategy and response. That is why Aviva is leading a coalition calling for the creation of an International Platform for Climate Finance (IPCF) – an independent organisation with the specific aim of helping deliver the trillion dollars needed each year to meet global climate commitments.
Our report ‘Global Sustainable Finance in 2018 – An Aviva guide for policymakers and regulators’ presents Aviva’s latest thinking on sustainable finance. It includes a perspective on the current challenges and opportunities, and a set of concrete recommendations that represent ambitious yet deliverable objectives to promote a step change in private finance for the Sustainable Development Goals.
This Policymakers guide also builds on ‘Financing our Future’, an in-depth piece of research jointly produced between Aviva and The Prince of Wales’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, examining action to encourage all actors in the financial sector to do more to integrate sustainability issues into their business.
The road to action
We collaborate on research and action to better understand, manage and disclose the risk of climate change. For example:
- In the follow-up report to 'The cost of inaction: Recognising the value at risk from climate change' which Aviva also sponsored, in 'The Road to Action' report the Economist Intelligence Unit review the challenges of reporting on the financial impact of climate change. They also investigate the roles that ten very different financial institutions could or do play in supporting this disclosure and how the process might be embedded into the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- In November 2016, Aviva released the Beyond the Tragedy of Horizons Report to coincide with COP22, giving our perspective on climate risk management and setting out suggested actions for investors and wider society.
