1. How can we finance transition and growth?

Financing the green transition needs to be about bringing organisations and individuals along the green journey in an inclusive way. This is the challenge of helping brown industries to move towards green. We will only make progress through collaboration - giving these businesses support and the chance to improve, not just cutting them off.

This is about ‘greening the product’, not just ‘greening the portfolio’ – and it's why we refer to ‘financing the transition’ rather than just green financing.

It’s also about being innovative - to channel funds to businesses who can problem solve and be creative. Inherent to supporting creativity is understanding risk – this is key. Finance becomes available when providers can price risk and that comes from understanding and measuring it.

And it’s about re-thinking consumption. We can’t finance the green transition and continue to fund current first-world rates of material consumption. But less consumption does not mean going without – it just means leaning into the lending economy, re-use and recycling, and prioritising sustainable consumption.

Finally, it’s about challenging ourselves to focus on really making a difference – not just the shiny headlines. For example, figuring out if new technology really is better than running down what we already have. It’s much less glamorous but often the environmental cost of production is greater than that of use. Can we do a bit more of ‘make-do and mend’?

Change is coming like it or not, and that means new products, new technologies and new markets.?These are exciting opportunities for finance providers when current growth opportunities in such a regulated market can be quite elusive.

We need to align finances to areas which grow our economy and support the green transition – we can’t afford to just do one or the other. For example, think about things like investment in green skills and jobs like apprenticeships in heat pump technology.

However, in all of this we need to be mindful about the unintended consequences of our actions. The key words to remember about the transition are that it must be just and fair. Too much focus solely on environmental goals might lead us to leave more vulnerable members of society behind. The green transition will not work if the only participants are those privileged enough to afford it.