Eighteen Dutch financial institutions have come together to commit to a shared Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) investment agenda.
With support from the Dutch government and central bank, pension funds, insurance firms and banks presented their report, Building Highways to SDG Investing, during the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) conference in Amsterdam.
Billed as a world-first, the consortium of financial institutions, which collectively manage over 2.8 trillion euros in assets, lists priorities for maximising SDG investing domestically and abroad.
“To our knowledge there is no other country that has convened with banks, pension funds and insurance firms to pull all the parties together including the government and central bank,” Carolien de Bruin, founder and CEO, C-Change, told Development Finance.
The signatories list concrete ways to accelerate and scale investment in the SDGs, which were agreed to after a six-month consultation process with 70 investors, experts and government representatives.
“When you look at the SDGs, we will need to go and invest in emerging and developing markets to reach our numbers and reach our goals, so there has been a lot of attention on what we can do to manage the risks that come with investing in emerging markets,” added de Bruin.
When asked by Development Finance how binding the commitments were, Herman Mulder, chairman of the board of the SDG Charter, said: “If you make a public commitment, it is very binding.”
Further conversations will take place over the course of December, including a cross-sectoral stakeholder consultation at the Dutch Central Bank on 14 December.
“In today’s tumultuous world, public-private action is ever more important as a driver for positive change,” added Mulder.
“The 2030 Agenda offers not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to collectively do well by doing good.”