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In Poland, the discussion on sustainable finance is just beginning

Is Poland ready to address the global trend such as sustainable finance? WiseEuropa’s experts, in the research paper “Sustainable finance in Poland. “The state of play and prospects for progress” commissioned by the Principles for Responsible Investment, show that now is the time to include the sustainability dimension and especially the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations in the discussion on the future of Polish capital markets.

“Sustainable finance in Poland. The state of play and prospects for progress” presents the current legal framework for pension and investment funds, the insurance sector as well as asset management in Poland. In the publication experts also offer a brief overview of how the energy market politics impacts the uptake of sustainable finance in Poland. Whereas the final part of the research paper includes more general remarks on the current state of sustainable finance in Poland and identifies political issues that are likely impact the progress in addressing the ESG considerations in regulations. “Non-financial aspects, especially the ESG issues, that affect the long-term resilience of the investment portfolios are more often being prioritized by the investors” – says Maciej Bukowski, President of WiseEuropa – “In Poland, the discussion on sustainable finance is just beginning.

Domestic investors need both, the greater awareness on global and pan-European processes as well as to develop the systematic approach towards this issue” WiseEuropa drives the Polish debate on the topic of sustainable finance and works with international partners to raise the awareness of key stakeholders on risks for the financial sector arising from climate change. In 2018, WiseEuropa published the report “The climate finance domino. Transition risks for the Polish financial sector” that identifies challenges for the Polish financial institutions arising from investments in carbon assets. Importantly, Maciej Bukowski, President of WiseEuropa, as a member of the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, supports the European Commission’s activities focused on developing the EU taxonomy that defines activities considered environmentally sustainable for investment purposes.

The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) works with its international network of signatories to put the six Principles into practice. Its goals are to understand the investment implications of the ESG issues and to support signatories in integrating these issues into investment and ownership decisions. The six Principles were developed by investors and are supported by the UN. They have more than 2,000 signatories from over 50 countries, representing US$81.7trn of assets. As of January 2019, there are 13 signatories in the PRI’s Central and Eastern Europe network, including investors from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Turkey.

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