Deutsche Börse AG launches its “Accelerating Sustainable Finance” initiative on Tuesday, together with other key players from Frankfurt’s financial centre. The launch conference will feature discussions on all issues around the financial system's future viability and new ideas for sustainable business models. In signing the “Frankfurt Declaration”, participants are making a joint declaration of intent to build sustainable financial sector infrastructures.

The Sustainable Finance Initiative's origin lies in the conviction that current global challenges, such as climate change and the progress of digitalisation, require innovative and solution-oriented action. Crucial to such action is the transformation to a more sustainable financial system worldwide. The participants in the Frankfurt Sustainable Finance Initiative aim to actively work together on the basis of their own core business, towards implementing sustainable milestones, such as the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, realisation of the Paris Agreement and also the design of the green finance focus of the German G20 presidency.

Signatories to the “Frankfurt Declaration” attest their intent to define a framework for a sustainable financial sector and to put an array of initiatives in motion to achieve this in financial centre Frankfurt. These include identifying innovative business areas, and encouraging responsible risk management. The idea is to drive forward the holistic mobilisation of sustainable financial market infrastructures as a means of supporting the positive development of business and society, while also ensuring the protection of the natural environment.

“The joint initiative shows that financial centre Frankfurt is fully aware of the role it will play in the future of the international capital markets. Meeting the challenges that face us and realizing the long-term objectives set today, brings a great opportunity. With the collaboration and expertise of all players we can start to make progress towards a more sustainable economy and society. While politics provides the necessary, overarching framework for this goal - we are determined to make a major contribution to a successful implementation”, said Deutsche Börse CEO Carsten Kengeter.

“This initiative and conference is a strong and very welcome signal of an important, beginning change in awareness. The  financial sector is increasingly recognising that green finance is not just not an exotic niche market. Rather, climate change and sustainability can have an impact on the risk and return of financial investments. Identifying, assessing and managing such risks in the future therefore has to become an integral part of the way financial firms are doing business”, said Dr Michael Meister, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance.

“It is key that all financial players pull together to advance financial market sustainability despite any differences in their business models. For this reason, we, as a bank that has always had a strong focus on sustainability, are pleased to join many other financial sector players in moving the sustainability initiative forward”, said Dr Günther Bräunig, Member of the Executive Board at KfW Group.

The event kicks off with speeches by Carsten Kengeter, Dr Michael Meister, and Iain Henderson from the United Nations. The first panel of speakers is composed of representatives from KfW, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Alliance 90/The Greens, Deutsche Börse, Allianz and Deutsche Bundesbank, who will discuss the current status of sustainability in the financial sector in depth. This will be followed by a second panel of experts on “Financing The Future”, who will discuss the use of specific sustainable investment tools, such as impact investment and financial inclusion. Panellists will be drawn from the German Organisation for International Cooperation (GIZ), Social Impact Lab Frankfurt, Deutsche Börse, Invest in Visions, Triodos Bank Deutschland, Roots of Impact and GreenTec Capital Partners. The last panel with representatives from Standard & Poor’s Credit Market Services, Arabesque, German Society of Investment Analysts and Asset Managers (DVFA), BlackRock, Sustainalitics, MSCI ESG Research and Deutsche Börse will focus on issues relating to the future of ESG (environmental, social and governance) indicators.

The conference is to be established as a permanent format in financial centre Frankfurt. Individual working groups will be created after the launch event to develop specific content and projects. The next conference with all participants is scheduled for the first quarter of 2018.

Please find enclosed the “Frankfurt Declaration”.

Social Media: Deutsche Börse (@DeutscheBoerse) communicates the initiative via social media with following Hashtags #SFinitiative und #FrankfurtDeclaration.