Amsterdam and London are the world’s leading green financial centres, according to an updated league table of global green finance hubs.
The Global Green Finance Index – published by Finance Watch – ranks global financial centres on the quality of their green and sustainable finance products and services every six months.
“The GGFI provides the sustainable finance industry and policymakers with deep insights,” said Nicolas Mackel, chief executive of Luxembourg For Finance.
“This information allows us to assess, measure, and grow our financial centres’ sustainable finance activities.”
In the latest edition of the index, Amsterdam topped the list of centres when it came to ‘depth of offering’, followed by Copenhagen, Zurich, Luxembourg and London. The UK capital, however, scored highest for quality of products, ahead of Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Zurich and Stockholm.
The survey also identified that renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure finance, and green bonds are the products most sought after by investors at present.
“People are running campaigns across the world to shift the investments of their cities, their pension funds, their universities, and their churches from the polluting fuels of the past to the green and sustainable energy projects of the future,” explained Yossi Cadan, global campaigner on divestment at 350.org.
“The divestment movement is a moral movement – it is calling on all people to take responsibility for our future and divest from the companies that profit from fuelling climate change – everyone can join.”
A supplement accompanying the latest report identified that there is “no clear link” between a financial centre’s ‘green reputation’ and their attitudes to fossil fuel financing.
The full report is available here.
