Sustainable supply chains

On 14th December I had the pleasure to represent the Bank at a meeting convened and hosted by HRH The Prince of Wales to discuss Harnessing Innovation in Finance to Solve Real World Sustainability Challenges. The initiative was conceived by the Banking the Environment Initiative, of which Standard Chartered is a member, that is supported by the Cambridge Institute of Leadership. This meeting followed the setting up of a Fintech Taskforce at a Chief Executive Summit convened by HRH in early 2017 with the aim of addressing the practical dynamic of how to design better multi-sector collaboration to innovate fintech solutions for sustainability.

The rationale for the Fintech Taskforce was the thought that a major turning point may be within reach of leaders trying to transform, for the better, the relationship between business and society. Specifically, there is a rising awareness about the potential for fintech solutions to be harnessed to support sustainable development. If done well, this could be transformative. The expectation that big business must find commercially viable ways to help solve the world’s social and environmental challenges is constantly growing. In parallel, fintech is emerging as a major redefining force for the provision of goods and services. The fintech taskforce had come up with a series of recommendations focused on how to design collaboration between multinationals, financial institutions and start-ups such that we better harness fintech to help solve sustainability challenges in the real economy and proposed two pilot project. The report produced can be read here.

The meeting focused on discussing the recommendations of the Fintech Taskforce and subsequent pilot projects with HRH in which the Bank had played a key role. We also made an announcement at the One Planet Summit in Paris on 12 December on the sustainable supply chain pilot with Unilever and Sainsbury’s. The announcement of the project took centre stage at the Summit and I was personally very encouraged to see the positive press coverage and feedback from peers.

It was a fascinating meeting with a mixture of British protocol, high engagement by the participants around the table and focus on enabling technology for the benefit of the planet with a commercial frame of mind. For me HRH was highly engaged, able to articulate fintech and technologies like distributed ledgers and incredibly passionate about sustainability and in particular sustainable farming. It was great to see Standard Chartered being a part of this group, driving social change and innovation which is increasingly becoming a habit and living into our purpose and brand promise.