Swiss Sustainable Finance presented its first Swiss Sustainable Investment Market Study with impressive results.

There is only one direction for sustainable investments: to the top. The increasing participation of institutional asset owners reflects the growing SI activities of pension funds and insurance companies. Further mainstreaming of sustainable investment solutions is a natural consequence of these changing client preferences.

At the SSF Annual Conference high-level expert speakers pointed out that innovative and sustainable solutions addressing global challenges are gaining grounds – yet by far not fast enough. When climate scientist Reto Knutti showed his charts illustrating global warming, it became clear that many hot summers lie ahead of us.

We hope for a light summer breeze to cool your leisurely days in order to gain new energy for dedicated work in sustainable finance. 

Kind regards,

Sabine Döbeli

CEO Swiss Sustainable Finance

SSF activities

Regulatory and market news

SSF and sustainable finance in the media

New members joining SSF

Join these events

New reports & studies

Swiss Market Study shows substantial increase in sustainable assets under management

The SI funds’ share of the total Swiss fund market has thereby risen from 7% last year to 9% and sustainable assets managed by institutional asset owners now account for about 16% of the assets held by pension funds and insurance companies. 

The full market study report is available in English and summaries are available in German and French.

SSF holds Members’ Assembly and SSF Annual Conference in Bern

On 19 June, SSF held its Members’ Assembly during which work group leaders presented their results and SSF provided an overview on its activities and achievements. With René Nicolodi, Swisscanto Invest by Zürcher Kantonalbank, and Pascal Zbinden, Swiss Re, two new members were elected to the SSF Board.

An expert input by Reto Knutti, professor of climate physics at ETH Zurich, paved the way for the second panel on integrating climate risk into financial decision-making. The event was rounded off with the keynote of Philippe Le Houérou, CEO at International Finance Corporation (IFC). 

The event summary, photos, videos of the sessions as well as all presentations are available on our website.

SSF publishes Annual Report 2017

With a growing outreach through different communication channels SSF was named over 60 times in relevant media. The six active work groups supported SSF in the preparation of the many publications and events.

SSF presents sustainable investment data at the GFSI

As a partner of the event, SSF presented the Swiss Sustainable Investment Market Study 2018 and also moderated the final panel on how asset owners can implement a socially responsible investment policy.

Read more on the event

SSF presents Market Study at Zurich launch event

SSF moderates panel at RFI Summit

As a partner of the event, SSF moderated a panel on the “Spectrum of impact finance & Islamic finance”. Read more about this event

Read more about these and other SSF activities

Back to top

Swiss news

• The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Switzerland signed an agreement to collaborate on creating new markets for climate finance in emerging markets. The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) will contribute up to USD 7.5 million for supporting the development of robust green bond markets.
• The international network Financial Centers for Sustainability (FC4S) will establish its headquarters in Geneva. It now encompasses 18 financial centres, including Geneva and Zurich, which explore new ways to align financial flows with a more sustainable development.
• The Federal Office for the Environment FOEN has published a report on the current state of implementation of the Paris agreement in Switzerland. Amongst others, it outlines the importance of climate-friendly investments.
• CFA Society Switzerland received the «Research Foundation Award» in the category «Content» by the CFA institute for its promotion of the «Handbook on Sustainable Investments» prepared by SSF. SSF is proud of the credentials attributed to the handbook and congratulates all authors who provided the content for this publication.

International initiatives

• The European Commission presented a package of measures succeeding its action plan on financing sustainable growth, including 3 proposals regarding the taxonomy of sustainable economic activities, ESG risk disclosure for institutional investors and benchmarks. Those proposals were backed by the European parliament with a majority of 70%.
• The European Commission has collected feedback on its draft amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the Insurance Distribution Directive to include ESG considerations into the advice that investment firms and insurance distributors.
• The European Commission has announced the members of the Technical Working Group on Sustainable Finance. Their main tasks are to assist the Commission in the development of an EU taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities, an EU Green Bond Standard, a category of "low carbon" indices for use by asset and portfolio managers as a benchmark and metrics allowing to improve disclosure on climate-related information. With Claudia Bolli, Swiss Re, a Swiss insurance company employing a progressive sustainable investment policy is represented in the work group.
• The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has pinned down three technical work streams to include supervisory/microprudential issues, macroeconomic risk as well as ways to scale up green finance. Furthermore, they welcomed the Bank al Maghrib, the Banco de España, the European Central Bank, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank as new members and the OECD as observer.
• The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) placed 185 of its 1,967 signatories on notice after an annual audit revealed they had not acted in accordance with the minimum standard of responsible investment activity. The organisations will be contacted privately and have two years to make improvements or face delisting and public identification.
• In the advent of the G7 in Canada, 288 investors with USD 26 trillion assets under management urged the national leaders to phase out power generated by thermal coal and put a meaningful price on carbon.
• In addition to the PRI and the Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), 26 banks convened to create global Banking Principles that align the sector with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. The draft principles will be presented during the UNEP FI Global Roundtable 2018 on 26 November in Paris.
• Addressing an industry-led report on social impact investing, the UK government published its response to the five themes, and considers regulatory change to help ensure ESG factors are "properly considered in pension investments.”

Market trends

• The online magazine Responsible Investor launched the research initiative “ESG: Do You or Don't You?" on pension funds and ESG, where it collaborates with UBS Asset Management. It aims to establish why some pension funds see ESG integration as a part of their fiduciary duty, while others do not. Asset owners can participate in the global survey here by end of July.
• Zürcher Kantonalbank is the first Swiss bank having issued a green bond in CHF. Its purpose is to refinance environmental loans of the bank.
• 16 banks including UBS have come together to create a publicly available methodology aligned with the TCFD recommendations to increase their understanding of how climate change and climate action could impact their business.
• As one of the first large insurers, AXA Group calculated the potential value at risk (VaR) in its asset portfolio due to climate change in accordance with the TCFD recommendations and Article 173 of French Energy law. The methodology applied is provided by Carbon Delta a Swiss start-up which recently closed its first investment round with CHF 1.7 m.
• Together with Solactive, a German financial index provider, UBS launched financial benchmark indices for World Bank bonds, multilateral development lender bonds, and development bank bonds.
• Allianz will completely phase out the underwriting of coal companies by 2040. Simultaneously, it aims to stop investing in companies that do not cut their greenhouse gas emissions, affecting EUR 664 bn of the insurer’s investments.
• One of Denmark’s largest pension funds, ATP, with USD 120 bn under management, has chosen to invest in a new Danish investment vehicle with a volume of USD 650 m aligned with the SDGs. As the Danish state and IFU (Investment Fund for Developing Countries) also contribute to the fund, risks are limited.
• The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) announced plans to issue a green bond, also making it the first pension fund to do so. It will sell debt to finance investments in Renewable Energy, Sustainable Water and Wastewater Management, and Green Buildings.

Back to top

• 7 June 2018, La Regione, L'altro volto della finanza
• 4 June 2018, Beobachter, Kassen heizen das Klima auf
• 2 June 2018, Environmental Finance, Swiss sustainable Investment hits record levels
• 2 June 2018, Finanz und Wirtschaft, 400 Mrd. Fr achtsam investiert
• 1 June 2018, Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE), Swiss investors allocate record CHF391bn to ESG assets
• 31 May 2018, Le Temps, Genève doit être plus qu’un centre de gestion durable
• 31 May 2018, SRF4 News, Interview mit Sabine Döbeli
• 31 May 2017, L'AGEFI, L'investissement durable se généralise à tous les acteurs de la place financière
• 31 May 2018, allnews, Les placements durables prennent leur envol
• 30 May 2018, NZZ, Nachhaltige Anlagen sind auf dem Vormarsch
• 30 May 2018, Ticino Finanza, Boom di investimenti sostenibili
• 29 May 2018, NZZ, Preisstabilität durch Klimaschutz
• 5 May 2018, NZZ, Nachhaltig anlegen ist nicht genug
• 24 April 2018, Bilanz, Paradiesisch investieren: Die Kunst der «grünen» Geldanlage
• 23 April 2018, Le Temps, Genève va accueillir le siège mondial des places financières durables

Visit our website for more articles and regular updates

Back to top

With IAM Independent Asset Management joining our organisation, SSF has expanded its member base to 100. Furthermore, SSF welcomes three more organisations as new SSF members and now counts 103 members and partners:

• 4 September 2018, Swiss Green Economy Symposium 2018, Winterthur
• 6 September 2018, ZHAW, Artificial Intelligence in Industry and Finance (3rd European COST Conference on Mathematics for Industry in Switzerland), Winterthur
• 25 September 2018, twentyfifty and SSF, Information event on the role of OECD guidelines for financial corporations, Zurich – more information soon on SSF website
• 22-26 October 2018, UNCTAD, 2018 World Investment Forum, Geneva

Further events are listed on the SSF website

Back to top

• June 2018: The Swiss Federal Council assesses the Swiss advancement on the 2030 Agenda in its latest report Switzerland implements the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and underlines the importance of private resources to achieve global goals.
• June 2018: In the report Winning Climate Strategies: Practical Solutions and Building Blocks for Asset Owners from Beginner to Best Practice by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project, 22 leading asset owners share their best practices of, identify barriers to and present building blocks for setting up climate strategies.
• June 2018: The paper Shooting for the moon in a hot air balloon? by 2° Investing Initiative focuses on the case of ‘Use-of-Proceeds Green Bonds’ that represent 95% of the market in 2016. It looks in particular at how to scale the impact of those proceeds.
• June 2018: The GIIN published its 2018 Annual Impact Investor Survey, reflecting 229 respondents’ perspectives on the growth and development of the impact investing industry.
• June 2018: In their scientific paper Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators published in the journal Nature Climate Change, six scientists present current key controversies and discuss potential policy avenues for the future.
• May 2018: The survey Got it Covered? Insurance in a changing climate by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project utilises the framework provided by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to benchmark responses from the world’s 80 largest insurers.
• May 2018: In Sailing from different harbours G20 approaches to implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership reviews the progress of G20 members in making the TCFD recommendations relevant to their national contexts.
• May 2018: In Part 2 of Foundations of ESG Investing: Integrating ESG into Benchmarks, MSCI examines four key criteria for an index that serves as a benchmark, whether at the total portfolio level or for individual allocations. Part 3: Integrating ESG into Passive Institutional Portfolios focuses on how ESG can be integrated into passive allocations.
• April 2018: In its most recent paper, the Swiss NGO coalition Klima-Allianz Schweiz makes nine Recommendations on climate risks to the Swiss National Bank to take into account the Paris agreement in its investment policies.
• April 2018: The PRI published an explanatory document on The European Commission Action Plan: An assessment of the reform areas for PRI signatories. It lays out the implications of the action plan in more detail.
• April 2018: Together with several NGOs, UNEP FI published Connecting Finance to Natural Capital: a supplement to the natural capital protocol. This document offers guidance for the finance sector and offers a framework to assess the natural capital impacts and dependencies of the entities and portfolios that they support.

Read these and other reports

Back to top

Follow us on Social Media

>Twitter @SwissSustFin

>LinkedIn Swiss Sustainable Finance