Transitioning towards green investment in Chile
The embassy supported a seminar focused on local and international drivers of investment for financial institutions in the green economy.
Presenters Ignacio Goldsack, CMPC; Juan Ladrón de Guevara, ASCC; Marina Hermosilla, CLG-Chile; Philip Hardwick, UK Climate Market Professional.
The Chilean financial sector has established a public-private working group to share experiences and best practices as well as develop research studies and pilot projects that will support the progress towards including sustainability and climate change aspects within Chile’s financial community. To promote the working group’s upcoming initiatives, the Sustainability and Climate Change Agency (ASCC) and the Chilean Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLG Chile), in collaboration with the British Embassy Santiago and German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), supported the seminar “Financial sector: Transitioning towards green investment in Chile”, held at the British Residence on Tuesday 5 December 2017.
This seminar focused on local and international drivers of investment for financial institutions in the green economy as well as other green financial mechanisms such as emissions markets.
British Energy and Climate Markets expert Philip Hardwick provided international insights on green finance during his presentation ‘Drivers of investment for financial institutions in the green economy: Green bonds and green financial mechanisms in the EU and US markets; the role of international investment banks and investment institutions.’ Local and regional green finance experiences followed with a presentation from Ignacio Goldsack, CFO of the company CMPC, ‘CMPC’s experience in the international debt market.’
Words of welcome by Ambassador Fiona Clouder
Her Majesty’s Ambassador opened the seminar by sharing more information on the UK’s leadership in green finance. She said:
I would like to start today with an important figure. $100 billion dollars. $100 billion dollars, is the total amount of global green bond issuance expected to be surpassed in 2017.
Today we are pleased to host all of you at the Residence to collaborate on financial policies, instruments and practices that are not only diversifying the financial sector but also support clean economic growth.
Now for some other important figures. In 2012 the UK government created the Green Investment Bank. Now privatised, the bank has backed 100 green infrastructure projects, committing £3.4 billion pounds sterling to the UK’s green economy into transactions worth £12 billion pounds sterling. UK-based trade bodies such as the City of London’s Green Finance Initiative and UK based NGOs are also driving the momentum to shift private capital into green investments.
As part of the UK’s Industrial Strategy launched last week, the UK government is collaborating with the British Standards Institute and the City of London’s Green Finance Initiative to develop the world’s first green financial management standards.
Like Chile’s new public-private working group/initiative, in September 2017 the UK recently formed a green finance task force. The task force brings together senior government and industry experts and academics to provide policy recommendations on how to finance the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy and support green investment needed to achieve our climate targets.
As the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney stated in reference to scaling up green finance ‘…market participants and public authorities will need to coordinate to deliver common green bond frameworks and definitions, and other necessary supporting infrastructure, to build local and cross-border markets.’
There is space for both of these UK and Chilean initiatives to collaborate on green investment frameworks, definitions and supporting infrastructure. Today is a great opportunity to start these conversations and develop future areas where we can continue to exchange experiences from the UK, Chile and other partner countries.
In collaboration with our German partners, GIZ, we are pleased to support the Chilean Sustainability and Climate Change Agency, the CLG and our UK and Chilean presenters today to develop greener investment paths to support economic and low carbon growth. [In English] I will now switch to English to welcome our British Guest, Energy and Climate Markets Professional, Philip Hardwick. As Philip’s CV details, he possesses a wide range of experience working in investment banks, the energy sector and public-private initiatives. We look forward to your presentation.
Further information
For more information about the events and activities of the British Embassy in Santiago, follow us on: