Beats | April 22, 2017

SDG Finance Lab: “Vast pools” of institutional capital for sustainable development

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How to close the $6 trillion annual gap in finance needed to reach the global goals for 2030? Tap the $80 trillion held by insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and philanthropic organizations in OECD countries alone.

The U.N. launched an SDG Finance Lab at a high-level event at UN headquarters to mobilize institutional capital for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Showing up: representatives from Aviva, JPMorgan Chase, Rabobank, Meridiam Infrastructure, Citi and others.

“We must create incentives to embed sustainability into financial decision-making,” said Peter Thomson, President of the UN General Assembly, reports Responsible Investor [paywall].

That reorientation is beginning to take hold in Europe, with commitments from major pension funds in the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Earlier this month, Bertrand Badré, the former World Bank financial chief who recently launched BlueOrange Capital to mobilize private capital for SDG investments in Latin America.

Responsible Investor is hosting a series of webinars in May on SDG investing.

This post originally appeared in ImpactAlpha’s daily newsletter. Get The Brief.

Photo credit: United Nations