Leading Banks Pledge Support for Transparency Initiative to Address Massive Sustainable Infrastructure Funding Gap
Aiming to address the trillion-dollar funding gap for sustainable infrastructure investment necessary to meet global development needs and sustainability ambitions, the Financial Services Task Force (FSTF), a group of major global bankers convened under the Sustainable Markets Initiative, announced support for plans to design a “Sustainable Infrastructure Label” enabling accelerated capital flows and attract financing to sustainable projects.
The new Sustainable Infrastructure Label (SI Label) is being developed by Finance to Accelerate the Sustainable Transition (FAST-Infra), an initiative dedicated to transforming sustainable infrastructure into a mainstream, liquid asset class. The SI Label will identify infrastructure projects that meet positive sustainability contribution criteria, with the goal of attracting investment to the projects and ultimately motivating more sustainability-focused development.
In an open letter published by the FSTF*, the group expressed its support for the SI Label initiative and pledged to work with FAST-Intra on its development. The letter cites OECD estimates of $6.9 trillion of annual investments necessary to meet global development needs by 2030.
The new label, which is currently under construction, aligns with existing standards and taxonomies and is designed to be complementary to existing reporting requirements.
The members of the FSTF wrote:
“As members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Financial Services Taskforce, alongside the Taskforce champions from the Asset Managers & Asset Owners and Insurance Taskforces, we understand the importance of channeling private sector finance into sustainable infrastructure. We believe that the SI Label could significantly contribute to achieving this goal, putting Nature, People and Planet at the heart of global value creation.”
*FTSF members include Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Coutts, Credit Suisse, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, Macquarie, NatWest Group, and Standard Chartered Bank. The FTSF is an industry sub-group of the Sustainable Markets Initiative.
