Making waves: aligning the financial system with sustainable development
Huge progress on reforming the global financial system over the last four years has started to deliver desperately needed financing for sustainability and set up the next wave of action, according to a new United Nations report. However, the final report of the UN Environment Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System cautions that current financial flows are still nowhere near enough to deliver the trillions of dollars needed each year to finance the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The Inquiry, which completed its four-year mandate in March 2018, worked with policymakers, international organizations, financial institutions and civil society to help put sustainable finance at the heart of the development debate. Its final report, Making Waves: Aligning the Financial System with Sustainable Development, finds that sustainability is now becoming part of routine practice within financial institutions and regulatory bodies.