Along with the three first modules of the Certified Expert in Sustainable Finance programme started back in September, world leaders are meeting in Glasgow for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference to commit and hopefully take urgent action to fight climate change and build a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future.
At a time when commitments to net-zero or climate neutrality flourish all over the world, the next two weeks will be a turning point for not only governments but companies, business actors, financial institutions and all citizens to make their part to achieve concrete results that are not there yet.
Since the beginning of my training programme, I can feel growing expectations from my fellow students for a necessary and inevitable transformation of our economic models as well as our mindset as those would come hand in hand to make a real change in our economy and our society.
Wherever they come from, they take on this learning journey as one step of a longer-term program to make changes within their organisation as well as in their regions, and ultimately address these challenges together. Global issues call for global action, and international collaboration. This must not be ignored by our political leaders, and by none of us. This would be the first lesson learned from this training programme.
Couple of days ago, the European Council formally approved more than EUR 23 billion to support developing countries in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change. This determination to continue scaling up sustainable finance, a fair transition and thus achieve collective goal of leaving a better world to the future generation is absolutely key to be successful.
I joined the cohort of students in the training programme of the Frankfurt Business School on Sustainable Finance with the same mindset – paraphrasing the message addressed by Sir David Attenborough to world leaders at COP 26 – “working apart, I can certainly pass my exam and get certified sustainable finance expert. But working together, we are powerful enough to look beyond our own individual small success and find the necessary large-scale solutions to make structural changes for tackling this global issue”.
The author: Julien Froumouth is Sustainable Finance Adviser at ABBL. He received an InFiNe.lu grant to attend the Certified Expert in Sustainable Finance programme organised by the Frankfurth School of Finance & Management.
