Global Green Finance Index Launched Today, Western Europe Outperforms Other Regions

BRUSSELS, March 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The new Global Green Finance Index (GGFI) was launched today by Z/Yen and Finance Watch at an event in Brussels. The GGFI ranks the world's financial centres according to perceptions of the quality and depth of their green finance offerings.  

In this inaugural edition (GGFI 1), financial centres in Western Europe outperformed those in other regions. The full report can be downloaded here.

The report's findings include:

• The leading green financial centres in each region are London, San Francisco, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Johannesburg and Cape Town, Mexico City, and Moscow.
• Paris, Frankfurt and New York lead the centres most cited as likely to become more significant over the next two to three years.
• Financial centres that have shown leadership in green finance policy are expected to gain in significance, with Paris at the top of this list.
• In some countries, smaller centres with a strong green focus such as San Francisco and Hamburg outperformed larger centres such as New York and Frankfurt.
• The rankings are liable to change in future editions, as they are based on tightly clustered scores in the range of 322-437 points out of 1,000.
• The level of scores suggests that green finance can grow substantially in size and quality.
• Supportive policy measures and investor demand are seen as the main drivers of green finance.
• Renewable Energy Investment, Green Bonds and Sustainable Infrastructure Finance were rated as areas of high impact on sustainability and of high interest to respondents.
• Disinvestment from fossil fuels was rated as high impact on sustainability but low interest to respondents, suggesting room for policy change.

Top Five Centres for Green 
Finance - Penetration  

London
Luxembourg
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
Paris

Top Five Centres for Green   
Finance - Quality  

London
Amsterdam
Brussels
Hamburg
Paris

Dr. Simon Zadek, Co-Director, UN Environment Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System; Visiting Professor and DSM Senior Fellow for Partnerships and Sustainability, Singapore Management University, said:

"Ratings and indexes are important instruments to enable effective communication of relative and absolute progress, as well as encouraging a race to the top, and a healthy debate of what constitutes success and how it can best be measured. In this spirit, Finance Watch and Z/Yen have taken us all to the next level in providing us with the first globally applicable index of developments in greening the world's financial centres".

Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman of Z/Yen, said:

"The core of the GGFI is a perception survey which observes and promotes change where it matters most - in people's minds. The more we can get people talking about a sustainable transition, the quicker it will happen. The high level of interest in GGFI 1 is a step in that direction."

Benoît Lallemand, Secretary General of Finance Watch, said:

"The GGFI aims to contribute to the definition of green finance and identify best practices and areas for improvement. We hope it will promote bold policy initiatives and high-quality financing that can cut through greenwash. It is urgent that sustainable finance becomes mainstream in all financial centres."

André Hoffman, President of MAVA Fondation pour la Nature, said:

"We are particularly excited that smaller and more specialised centres, such as Hamburg and San Francisco, and financial centres with strong policy frameworks around green finance, such as Paris, Luxembourg and the Chinese centres, have performed well in this first index. We hope more centres will follow where they are leading."

NOTES

The GGFI is a non-profit initiative produced by Finance Watch and Z/Yen with support from the MAVA Fondation pour la Nature.

The GGFI will be updated every six months, based on a survey running continuously at http://survey.greenfinanceindex.net/

GGFI 1 was launched at the Hotel Leopold, Rue de Luxembourg, Brussels at 12:00 hours CET on 14 March 2018.

Further information at www.greenfinanceindex.net

For further information or to interview one of the team, please contact:

Mike Wardle, Z/Yen
Email: mike_wardle@zyen.com
Tel: +44(0)20-7562-9562

Greg Ford, Finance Watch
Email: greg.ford.ext@finance-watch.org
Tel: +44(0)7703-219-222