France

Sustainable Finance Observatory

The Sustainable Finance Observatory aims to monitor the transformation of the French financial sector towards more sustainable finance and the achievement of the objectives of the Paris Agreement, in particular by monitoring the commitments of financial actors. It is funded by ADEME and the European Union through the LIFE program.

An initiative of Finance For Tomorrow

Overview of the project

In concrete terms, it consists of a website, launched in 2020, which allows everyone to access the following information:

  • A presentation, tracking and deciphering of the individual public commitments of financial institutions, based on voluntary declarations by each actor
  • Aggregate indicators and data from 5 financial sectors: insurance, banking, private equity, management companies and specialised companies, representing more than 80% of French assets, allowing to report on the achievements and actions of the stakeholders of the Paris stock exchange in terms of green and sustainable finance.
Objective

The Sustainable Finance Observatory contributes to the transparency, understanding, monitoring and evaluation of the progressive transformation of the financial sector by providing information on the implementation of the commitments made by the members of the signatory federations in a transparent manner that is available to all.

Level of progress

Networking, internationalisation

Project timeline

02/07/2019 - project still in progress

Quantitative results

On the “Tracking of individual commitments” part: The data collection allowed the publication of 1372 commitments as of 19/11/2021, totalling 370 actors. More than a third of the commitments posted are being followed up. Commitments considered compliant according to our criteria represent half of the publication.

On the “Transformation of financial practices and flows” section: In 2021, our data represents 6 banks, 86 asset management companies and 22 insurance companies, i.e. a coverage of more than 80% of the assets of financial players in the Paris stock exchange.

Qualitative results

The Observatory was presented at the Climate Finance Days in 2020 and 2021, at the COP 26 and served as a basis for the development of the One Planet Data Hub.

5 achievements in 2021:

  1. Presentation of new exclusive aggregated data and updating of existing data.
  2. Integration of pedagogical explanations to better understand the issues related to the data presented and the associated technical terms.
  3. Support for each actor wishing to publish their individual commitments on our site through the publication of the commitments guide
  4. Follow-up of the commitments easily accessible on our website
  5. Analysis and deciphering of the commitments published on our site through the use of reading tables
Financing

It is supported by a grant from ADEME (40%) and a grant from the European Union via the LIFE programme (30%) within the framework of the Finance Climact project (ADEME, I4CE, the CGDD, the AMF and the ACPR, as well as the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, the project sponsor)

The professional federations of the finance industry (22%) and Finance For Tomorrow (8%) are also funding this project.

About the
organisation

Finance For Tomorrow

website
Raphaël Lebel
Director of the Sustainable Finance Observatory - Coordinator of the Clim'Act Programme
r.lebel@financefortomorrow.com
+ 33 (0)6 73 27 10 50

Finance for Tomorrow is the branch of Paris EUROPLACE launched in June 2017 with the objective of making green and sustainable finance a driving force in the development of the Paris stock exchange, to position it as a leading financial centre on these issues. The 80+ members of Finance for Tomorrow commit in a joint charter to contribute to redirecting financial flows towards a low-carbon and inclusive economy, in line with the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Find them on