Ireland’s 5th annual Climate Finance Week – A massive success!

Climate Finance Week Ireland 2022 drew to a close for another year in October, but not before offering an insight into how far Ireland has come in developing its response to sustainability demands and obligations.

This year’s event marked a number of world-firsts for the sustainable finance agenda both nationally and globally, as well as offering the Irish-located and international finance community a clear picture of the action being taken in the implementation of the national Sustainable Finance Roadmap.

The opening day of CFWI22 saw Minister Simon Harris launch the International Sustainable Finance Centre of Excellence (the Centre) in Dublin, a priority measure under the updated Ireland for Finance strategy and ‘Action 1’ of the Sustainable Finance Roadmap.

The Centre, which has been established in partnership with public and private stakeholders, including Skillnet Ireland, UNDP Financial Centres for Sustainability and the EU’s Climate-KIC will serve as the new focal point for talent development and innovation within the finance sector.

Speaking at the launch, Minister Harris acknowledged the important role of the Centre, saying, “We can never afford to be complacent, we can never afford to rest on our laurels and really what I want the world to know, what I want anyone thinking of investing in Ireland to know is that we are deadly serious about developing the talent poll we need to service the industry today and into the future. You have to develop centres like this to make sure you can equip the industry and people working within the industry. That’s what we’re doing today.”

The critical role of the finance sector in helping to address runaway climate change was highlighted as part of the ‘Geopolitics of Climate Finance’ event. The Climate agenda has been forced to contend with unprecedented security and energy concerns and pressing humanitarian challenges this year, including the ongoing war in Ukraine and the continuing international response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at the event, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohue, said that the “common thread” tying these concerns together was “climate, energy and the need to transition to a lower carbon future. We do our best in Ireland to be a voice for ambition at European level,” Minister Donohue said, “We’re strong supporters of the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities, which through common, science-based definitions of environmentally sustainable activities, will help to guide and scale up high quality investment to support our Net Zero goals.”

Ireland’s strategy to support the development of innovative, data-driven technology solutions to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) challenges was officially launched during CFWI22.

Overseen by Sustainable Finance Ireland and the Fintech and Payments association of Ireland, the Sustainable Finance Fintech Strategy has been devised in order to leverage Ireland’s existing strength in financial technology to support the transition to a more sustainable economy.

This falls under Pillar 3 of the Irish Sustainable Finance Roadmap – ‘Leveraging Digital’ – which focuses on the application of digital solutions to the ESG data and risk management challenges.

To find out more about the programme of events which ran for Climate Finance Week Ireland 2022, visit https://www.climatefinanceweek.ie/