What’s the future for green finance? This was the question posed by the European Movement and the European Investment Bank, during an afternoon of debate last Wednesday, including speakers from ENEDIS, Entreprendre Vert and the OECD, entitled “Make Investments Green Again”.

The afternoon was an official Side Event to the One Planet Summit initiated by the French President, Emmanuel Macron. With the One Planet Summit bringing together various world leaders, the Make Investments Green Again event was an opportunity to bring together figures from businesses large and small, political figures, and representatives of NGOs and charities, in order to reflect on how these different sectors can work together to drive the change needed in our approach to green investments and sustainable development.

Elodie de Recy, Head of the Paris Office of the EIB, delivered the keynote, outlining how the EIB has been the leader in climate finance, being the first to launch green finance obligations concerning all of their investments, and citing the success of their funding of the Eiffel Investment Group, reducing the risk of construction and renewable energy projects.

A sustainable economy, how and why?

The idea of differing sectors needing to work together in the fight against climate change was evoked by Anne-Claire Roux, Director at Finance for Tomorrow, speaker during the first of the two round-tables, on the subject of investing for tomorrow: “Dialogue and exchange with NGOs is indispensable and was at the heart of the One Planet Summit”. In the same round-table, Ekaterina Reshetnikova, Finance & Climate Expert at the charity EcoAct noted how the sustainable world of tomorrow need only be 5% more expensive than our current economic models of today.

In an afternoon panel on building a more sustainable future, Michel Derdevet, Secretary General of ENEDIS, called for a truly European level approach to R&D and harmonization in the area of green finance, while Emmanuel Martinez, Environment Director at Société Générale struck an optimistic note after a successful One Planet Summit, noting how France and China in particular are well poised to play a significant role in the future of green finance.

The event was held in Paris at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques, a partner to the event along with Finance for Tomorrow, Euractiv, and the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale.