Sustainable finance: developments, trends, and expectations for the coming years

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. To overcome these challenges, the European Union aims to transform the EU into a more sustainable economy for the people and the planet, including becoming climate neutral by 2050.

In the last few years, the EU has put forward packages of measures to build on and strengthen the foundations of the EU sustainable finance framework as a response to these challenges. This framework includes the EU Green Deal, the EU Taxonomy Regulation, the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and much more.

These initiatives can have a profound impact on companies’ governance, operations, and reporting for both non-financial companies, such as social housing organisations, and financial companies. The EU’s ambition is to create a culture of transparency that will help stakeholders, especially investors, to evaluate the sustainable performance of companies and therefore, encourage them to invest in sustainable activities.

This webinar episode is organised as part of the EU-funded syn.ikia project.

 

Objectives:

• What are the current developments in the sustainable finance world and what are the expectations from investors and banks in this matter?
• How could these developments impact social housing organisations in the future...and are housing providers ready to handle this?
• Is green financing bringing extra funds into sustainable projects or just used to refinance business-as-usual activities?
• How much of green financing is reaching innovative projects in deprived areas and can indicators be adapted to increase that amount?

 

10.00-10.05 | Welcome and introduction, Dara Turnbull – Research Coordinator, Housing Europe

10.05-10.15 | Green finance to scale-up Positive Energy Neighbourhoods, Clara Mafé – Innovation Officer, Housing Europe

10.15-10.55 | Zooming-out: Regulatory and investment landscape of ESG Finance, Moderated by Dara Turnbull – Research Coordinator, Housing Europe

• Out-of-office pitch by European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), Paolo Mazzeo, EFRAG Senior Technical Manager
• Pitch by European Association of Public Banks, Lidwin van Velden, President of the EAPB and CEO of NWB Bank
• Chat with Delphis on opportunities and constraints for social housing providers, Charlotte Limousin – DELPHIS

10.55-11.00 | Comfort break

11.00-11.30 | Zooming-in: Experiences from the social and affordable housing sector, Moderated by Dara Turnbull – Research Coordinator, Housing Europe

• Valloire Habitat’s impact loan
• ÖrebroBostäder’s Sustainability evaluation process & social obligations, Oliver Hagvall – CFO ÖrebroBostäder AB, Sweden
• Norwegian cooperatives at the forefront of taxonomy aligned finance, Christian-Marius Stryken,The Co-operative Housing Federation of Norway (NBBL)
   

11.30-11.45 | Chat with Alex Fernandez (TU Delft) on the impact of green finance on the social housing sector

11.45-11.55 | EU Policy implications, Julien Dijol, Housing Europe

11.55-12.00 | Closing

Registration link