[Reblogged from LinkedIn]

Last year, I presented UN Environment’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative (PSI) at the sustainability conference of a PSI member, Finance Norway—the association of Norwegian financial institutions, comprising banks, insurers, investment firms and pension providers. One idea that I suggested then, was for Norway to develop a sustainable finance roadmap.

This idea resonated with Finance Norway, led by its CEO, Idar Kreutzer. Before Finance Norway, Idar was the CEO of Storebrand, a leading Norwegian insurer. Storebrand was one of the founding members of UN Environment’s Insurance Industry Initiative—way back in 1995—and became a founding signatory to the Principles for Sustainable Insurance when they were launched in 2012.

Time flies.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that Finance Norway has produced a sustainable finance roadmap for the Norwegian financial sector—“The Roadmap for Green Competitiveness in the Norwegian Financial Sector”.

The roadmap sets the vision of a profitable and sustainable Norwegian financial sector in 2030, and the goal of supporting the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable Norwegian economy.

The roadmap has seven general recommendations:

1. Establishing a common taxonomy for sustainable finance
2. Aligning climate reporting with the Financial Stability Board’s climate risk disclosure recommendations
3. Increasing climate competence and capacity in the financial sector
4. Including climate risk in the Norwegian financial supervisory authority’s mandate
5. Improving collaboration between the financial sector and the authorities
6. Using digitalisation to scale up the market for climate-smart solutions
7. Contributing to innovation and change in other sectors

Furthermore, the roadmap provides specific recommendations for core business activities of banks, insurers and investors.

Finance Norway’s initiative, as a national industry association, in producing a sustainable finance roadmap is a concrete example of sustainability leadership and commitment. It is also something that other national, regional or international industry associations around the world can do—whether they cover banking, insurance or investment, or the entire financial sector.

See the English version (executive summary) and the Norwegian version (full document) of Norway’s sustainable finance roadmap.