The role of private finance in supporting the transition to a new economy is an integral and increasingly central part of the sustainability debate. Significant efforts are already underway to promote and enable the finance sector’s participation, yet despite these efforts, the availability of private finance remains limited. A core obstacle persists and threatens to impede the achievement of widespread change: the commercial viability and “bankability” of many of the products, activities and services that define the new economy remains elusive.
The UNEP FI Banking Commission announced today that they would take on this challenge with the launch of a “Positive Impact Manifesto” at the UNEP FI’s 2015 Annual General Meeting. The Manifesto invites banks and other financial sector players to think more holistically about their role in the economy, society and the broader environment, and proposes a ‘Roadmap’ to establishing a new, impact-based and market-driven paradigm: positive impact finance. Positive Impact finance is defined in the Manifesto as “that which verifiably produces a positive impact on the economy, society or the environment once any potential negative impacts have been duly identified and mitigated”.
Download the Positive Impact Manifesto.
Read the press release.