Business Leaders Join UN Chief to Activate Resilience Action |

V Global Investors Alliance for Sustainable Development (GISD), which brings together 30 business giants worth about $ 16 trillion, met with Mr Guterres in New York and charted concrete actions for the future.

Since October 2019, when the Secretary General convened the GISD Alliance, its CEOs and other senior leaders have worked with the UN and other partners to develop guidelines and products that align the existing financial and investment ecosystem with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“I look forward to GISD Alliance members to catalyze more investment in developing countries” – UN Secretary General António Guterres

Great responsibility

Recognizing the “great responsibility” facing private sector leaders, Mr Guterres said the goals are clear: “Build a sustainable, clean zero, sustainable and just world, better align investments with sustainable development and fulfill our commitments in accordance with reliable timelines, goals and plans”…

Since its inception, the GISD Alliance has developed standards and tools aimed at translating trillions of dollars towards bridging the funding gap and implementing the UN strategy. Agenda 2030…

The group works through increasing the available supply of long-term investments for sustainable development, realizing the investment opportunities of the SDGs in developing countries and increasing the impact of private investment on sustainable development…

Pure zero and sustainability

“I look forward to the members of the GISD Alliance as catalysts for increasing investment in developing countries and making zero-level and sustainability the backbone of everyone’s policies and business models,” continued Mr Guterres.

GISD has also embarked on crisis management action, including in 2020, by developing COVID Bond Call to Action… The call has spurred companies and governments to use innovative social connections to respond to the pandemic, contributing to sustainable economic recovery.

Measuring exposure

This year the GISD published its latest an investment vehicle designed to align funding with the SDGs… Using a set of industry metrics, he proposes to accurately measure the impact of companies on sustainable development goals and provide investors with key information.

This is an important step as previous reporting systems have focused primarily on measuring the sustainability impact of a company’s operations across all industries.

According to Leila Furi, co-chair of the GISD and CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange group, “industry performance indicators, while useful, usually do not reflect the full impact of the products and services companies produce.”

Next steps

In the coming months GISD will launch an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) and blended fund, helping “move towards real SDG financing opportunities.“Said Oliver Bethe, GISD Co-Chair and CEO of Allianz.

GISD also works with the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, COP26 Climate Conference Bureau and leading G7 countries, and works with multilateral development banks to develop actionable recommendations on how to increase private investment for sustainable development.