ESG Editorial 14.06.2022

Happy Tuesday! What a packed week it has been for the EPLO Institute for Sustainable Development as we have partnered with many note-worthy institutions, such as sponsoring the winners of Envolve Greece with ESG trainings to promote ESG in entrepreneurship, and with the World Human Forum and Convergences Greece to organize the first New European Bauhaus Festival in Greece for sustainable cities.

From our discussions at the first New European Bauhaus Festival in Athens, many interesting facts arose that are related to climate change action and how resilient our cities need to become. While 80% of Athens is covered in concrete, accounting for the sizzling summer temperatures, school yards in Paris are being reconstructed to allow for more soil and thus avoid high temperatures when heatwaves hit, the importance of wild life in urban cities from London to Athens is increasing, yet pruning trees in spring means that birds have nowhere to go. A lot must be done to decrease heat in our urban centres, and best practices do exist so we can start by taking small steps, such learning how to treat trees and green spaces in cities to create biodiversity hotspots, not decorative greenery.

As momentum builds for the upcoming 2022 UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, we are humbled to announce that the EPLO Institute for Sustainable Development is hosting two side events during the Conference, attended by high-level, influential speakers.

Please join us at the One Sustainable Ocean Pavilion on Monday, June 27, at 17.30 Lisbon time to discuss how we can leverage partnerships to finance the sustainable blue economy with speakers from the European Commission and FAO, and on Wednesday, June 29, at 11.10am where we will be presenting Verimpact, the ESG assessment tool and methodology, and how it can be used for sustainable blue investments and Marine Protected Areas!

On the ESG front, we have selected today an introductory article to sustainable finance and what is happening in the EU in terms of food waste (SDG1) and of women in board rooms (SDG5). Additionally, as we are supporting the Enterprise Greece/Eurobank initiative in deciphering what ESG means for SMEs in Greece, if you are Greek-speaking, please join us for the webinar on the Environmental aspects of ESG on June 21.?

Happy reading!?