As the demand for green financing gains momentum, so too does the demand for complementary and proxy industries, standards, and regulatory frameworks. Ensuring that this industry and these asset classes continue to grow and provide new investment avenues will require greater cross-sector alignment among investors, regulators, and business leaders.

In a private roundtable co-hosted with Elevandi at the inaugural Point Zero Forum in Zurich, the Milken Institute gathered chief sustainability officers, leading investors, and financial regulators to discuss what could be done to crowd in more sustainability-linked investments, generate returns on capital, protect against risks, and ensure positive impacts on the environment. (Elevandi is a nonprofit created by the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS] to foster open dialog between the public and private sectors to advance FinTech in the digital economy.)

The plenary was co-moderated by Hiromichi Mizuno, special advisor to the Milken Institute and special envoy of the United Nations (UN) secretary-general on innovative finance and sustainable investments, and Darian McBain, PhD, chief sustainability officer of the MAS.

This roundtable is the first in a series of sessions the Milken Institute and Elevandi will be convening. Further iterations for 2022 will be organized at the Milken Institute Asia Summit and the Singapore FinTech Festival. Through this partnership, we hope that these convenings and research on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues can help smooth and support the catalytic role of finance in shifting businesses, regulators, and societies toward a more sustainable future.