Can you tell us about your academic and professional background?

I'm Canadian and studied business for my Bachelor's degree, then social innovation for my Master's degree. At the age of 19, I started working in the oil industry in Calgary, where I became passionate about the transition to a more sustainable energy system. After several years working in the energy industry, I co-founded a non-profit organization called Student Energy, which engages young people in the energy transition.

In 2015, I moved to Geneva for an internship with the United Nations Environment Programme. Soon after, I joined the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the UN on accelerating the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It was within this framework that I helped create Building Bridges, a collaborative initiative between the financial industry and other players such as the UN, NGOs and governments to channel more capital into sustainable investments. I was project manager of Building Bridges from 2021 to 2023, and am now Managing Director of Sustainable Finance Geneva, having previously been its Community Manager.

I'm passionate about building active communities united around a common goal.

Can you tell us about your association, SFG, and its mission?

Sustainable Finance Geneva (SFG) is a local association promoting sustainable finance in the Swiss market. SFG is unique in many ways. It was the first organization to address sustainable finance issues in Switzerland and was, and remains, a pioneer in the field. Of course, there are many other organizations working on these issues today (including SSF, SBA and AMAS), and SFG is pleased to now have more interlocutors with whom it can advance the subject of sustainable finance. SFG serves, and is governed by, finance professionals. We have both institutional members who support our work and our mission, and individual members who are interested in the subject and need support to make daily progress in this direction as part of their careers.

SFG's strategy is based on three fundamental pillars. We aim to:

• Strengthen links between sustainable finance players in the Geneva ecosystem - this includes networking opportunities and the provision of a free ecosystem map to facilitate introductions.
• Empowering individuals to take action for sustainable finance in their own institutions and spheres of influence - this includes learning opportunities for our member network and peer-to-peer forums.
• Promote the mainstreaming of positive-impact finance by raising awareness, fostering knowledge creation and incubating projects - including advancing key impact themes such as gender, peace and nature, while collaborating with local actors on impact initiatives.

What do you see as the main challenges facing sustainable finance today?

The sector faces a range of challenges, but instead of focusing on the usual issues most often cited, such as the need to keep up with the changing regulatory landscape or the need for adequate data and information from companies, I'll concentrate on some of the more recent challenges SFG is exploring:

• An integrated, cross-cutting view of sustainability - climate and nature finance has made considerable progress and is at various stages of integration in the industry, but the social aspects of finance still have a long way to go. Social issues are diverse and fundamentally important to a fair and equitable economy. Whether it's protecting human rights, ensuring gender equality and workforce diversity, promoting stability and peace, guaranteeing decent work, implementing health and safety standards or eliminating gross inequalities, finance needs mechanisms to take into account the social aspects (the S) of ESG. We are closely following the work of the TISFD, the Capitals Coalition and the Pre Distribution Initiative to identify developments in this area. In addition, SFG is championing a series of initiatives focusing specifically on the link between Peace and Finance.
• Bringing capital to the local level - as an organization firmly rooted in Geneva, we're interested in how the financial industry can play a key role in supporting Geneva's environmental, social and economic goals as a city/canton. Geneva is a pioneer in global wealth management, impact investing and commodity trading, and we're wondering if we can do more to create mechanisms that support the financing of projects with positive impacts locally in Geneva. We have begun discussions with a range of local players to consider what would be needed to achieve this.
• Changing financial systems - there are limits to what financial institutions can do in the current system. The wider economic system must also evolve to enable all players to adopt behavior that focuses on, and promotes, sustainability. For example, markets need to incorporate the price of externalities, our understanding of fiduciary duty needs to evolve, and the financial sector needs long-term decision-making mechanisms, not quarterly reporting cycles. We are keen to participate in conversations and reflections on these topics, and are following the work of the TransCap Initiative and the Capital Institute in this area.

Why is it so important for sustainable finance professionals to stay informed and up-to-date?

Sustainable finance is not simply an addition to traditional finance, but rather an evolution of finance as a whole. Sustainable finance, like digital developments, is the future of finance, and the theme is developing rapidly. This means that every finance professional should have a basic understanding of sustainability, as it is fundamental to good risk management and to being able to spot and capitalize on new investment opportunities. For professionals who focus specifically on sustainable finance, we find it very useful to keep up to date in a variety of ways. Formal training courses such as those offered by ISFB help to raise fundamental levels of knowledge; webinars organized by players such as PRI,UNEP FI and Building Bridges provide relevant updates on key regulatory developments and new thinking; and peer-to-peer roundtables, such as those we offer at SFG, provide a space for exchange with other practitioners that helps to turn training and knowledge into practical strategies.

Kali Taylor

Managing Director (Sustainable Finance Geneva, SFG)