ASFI June update
It's been another busy month at ASFI, where we were excited to welcome Nicole Yazbek-Martin to the ASFI team. With a background in climate and sustainability across government, banking, private equity and law, Nicole has joined the team in Canberra leading our taxonomy project.
We’re also pleased to welcome Fiona Reynolds, CEO Conexus and former CEO of PRI to the ASFI Board. Her strong expertise in sustainable finance markets and policy in Europe and globally, as well as her strong track record in building industry organisations, and working with government, will be extremely valuable on the ASFI Board as ASFI we continue to build out our work and team.
Interest in ASFI membership is growing and we’re pleased to welcome QIC as the newest ASFI member.
There is also growing interest and momentum behind our work, with our taxonomy project featured in the AFR, Responsible Investor and ESG Investor in May, and our government engagement agenda continues to grow with the new government now in place. Strong Australian Government ambition on climate, environment and social policy is closely aligned with the Australian Sustainable Finance Roadmap and we look forward to continuing to build our collaborative working relationship with many different parts of government, at both federal and state levels.
ASFI progress
Taxonomy project:
Thanks to the generous contributions of IFM, Cbus, HESTA, NAB, CBA, IAG, QBE and Deloitte we have been moving full steam ahead on our taxonomy project. This support has enabled us to grow our team internally appoint a project team to support this wrok.
We held our first Technical Advisory Group meeting earlier this month, kindly hosted by CEFC at their Sydney office.
We will be annoucing who we will partnering with to undertake this work in the coming days.
TNFD
The TNFD workshops are now nearly completed, with one more workship to go. We’ve had very strong attendance and engagement from ASFI members and the workshops are available to view online for those who missed them.
For those involved in the TNFD workshops you should have received a link to a survey which will inform future work in this area.
Leadership Forum:
We continue to scope out our work under the Leadership Forum and have started planning for an ASFI Sustainable Finance Summit to be held at the end of October. The Summit will provide an opportunity to showcase organisations who are leading the implementation of the Australian Sustainable Finance Roadmap, and hear from industry and government leaders about what more needs to happen to grow the Australian sustainable finance market with credibility. The Summit will also provide the opportunity to build connections with leaders and practitioners from across the sustainable finance and investment market.
More details to come, and with limited opportunities to support this event, please get in touch as soon as possible to register your interest.
Building the sustainability capability required across the finance sector is an issue that many members have raised.The Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at University of Technology Sydney is conducting a survey on climate skills in the Australian financial system, with funding support from CSIRO’s Climate Resilient Enterprise unit. This research builds on the overseas research to explore the current level of ‘climate skills’ (climate/climate risk-related skills, knowledge areas or competencies) within finance system organisations and sustainable finance professionals in Australia, relative to need. Please help contribute to this important study by completing the survery here. The survery will close on Sunday 10 July.
Events
There are a range of upcoming member events which we welcome your participation in.
July TBC: TNFD Workshop 4.
To register for the above event and opportunties please contact ASFI today.
Watch a replay of our Building industry capability on sustainability with Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School and Head of the UN Global Compact’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRM) here.
Engagements
Australian Government engagement: In recognising that ASFI has the unique ability to bring a whole of finance sector perspective to policy discussions. Over the past month we have been contiinuning to build on our collaborative working relationships with the new federal governement.
Australia Singapore Green Economy Agreement: The Australian and Singaporean Government are working together to strengthen cooperation on green economy issues, including sustainable finance and carbon markets. ASFI, including some of our members, attended a roundtable discussion in June where DFAT and Singaporean officials sought ideas and suggestions on how the agreement could accelerate market development and international inter-operability.
I look forward to sharing more exciting updates with you next month. In the meantime, please keep an eye on our LinkedIn for news and updates.