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Mitigating climate change is strongly on the agenda of the entire finance sector

A decorative picture from a green financing seminar.

The need for further cooperation and commitment became evident in the Sustainable Finance in Nordic–Baltic conference which was organised in Helsinki by Finance Finland and Finance Latvia Association in partnership with European Commission. The event took place on Friday 9 November, 2018. Around 140 public and private sector representatives from Nordic–Baltic region’s finance and investment community gathered to the event.

The discussion in the conference revolved mainly around the climate impacts of financing. However, some speakers also emphasized that financing can further also other sustainable development goals such as increased social wellbeing or gender equality.

As part of the conference programme, the conference participants will also visit MuniFin to demonstrate sustainable finance in action. MuniFin was Finland’s first green bond issuer with an inaugural green bond issue in 2016.

– There is an extremely strong and increasing investor demand for green bonds. Green loans have been very well received by the customers. With that said, we also offer a margin discount in our green lending to encourage our customers to make green investments and to compensate the extra work needed for impact reporting, said Joakim Holmström, Head of Capital Markets at MuniFin in one of the conference’s panel discussions.