At the 10th anniversary conference of Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) on 20 June 2024 in Bern, representatives of the Swiss authorities and the financial sector developed a common vision for a rapid and socially acceptable transition to a sustainable future. Among the high-profile speakers were Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Daniel Belfer, CEO of J. Safra Sarasin and Dr. Kirsten Schuijt, Director WWF International. At the General Assembly, the SSF members elected five new financial representatives to the Board.

SSF's 10-year anniversary conference opened with a presentation by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Chair of "The Elders" and former UN Special Envoy for Human Rights, who emphasized the importance of rapid and socially acceptable climate action. In the ensuing panel discussions, the roles of various actors such as foundations, government, private and institutional clients, banks, stock exchanges, innovative companies and NGOs were discussed and success factors for the next 10 years were identified. One thing is clear: the financial industry can and should play a pivotal role by accompanying customers on the transition path and pricing in sustainability risks in product offerings. In order to drive and promote innovation, cooperation is also required with foundations and governments, which are equipped to make new solutions marketable and investable thanks to risk transfer mechanisms. Evolving expectations from both private and institutional investors are also an important driver of the transition towards a sustainable economy. Improved transparency will be critical to allow for investment decisions that account for future developments. “Over the past 10 years, SSF has established itself as the reference organization for sustainable finance in Switzerland, and we are proud of the numerous successes we have achieved together with our more than 250 members” sums up Sabine Döbeli, CEO of SSF. The short film showed during the SSF Annual Conference features comments from selected founding members on the major milestones achieved in the past 10 years, and what they see as opportunities and further developments for the next 10 years.

Five well-known representatives of the financial sector elected to SSF Board

Following the departure of some board members, five new members were elected to the SSF Board: Daniel Gussmann, Chief Investment Officer at AXA Switzerland, Christian Hofer, Head of Sustainability, Political Affairs and Cooperative at Raiffeisen, Marion Leslie, Head of Financial Information at SIX, Yvonne Lenoir Gehl, Head of Group General Counsel Office at Pictet Group, and Fabio Pellizzari, Head of ESG Strategy & Development at ZKB's Asset Management. "We are very pleased that our Board will be supplemented with so much new know-how and are convinced that we will achieve our goal of making Switzerland a leading sustainable financial centre even faster," comments Patrick Odier, President of SSF. The list of all SSF Board members can be found here.

> Read the media release in English, German or French.

Best regards,

The SSF Team