Amid the growing global focus on the economic impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, the government has set up a key task force under economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth to lay out a concrete road map to bolster India’s sustainable finance architecture.
The task force will firm up recommendations to further strengthen the resilience of the country’s financial sector against risks emanating from various climate and ESG issues, a senior government official told FE. It will firm up recommendations to grow sustainable finance in India and set a clear time frame for their implementation.
As part of this initiative, a survey is being undertaken with the help of the United Nations Development Programme (India) to assess climate and ESG resilience in India’s financial sector. Bankers, who are among the key stakeholders in the financial system, have submitted their responses on this issue as well.
According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) estimate before the pandemic, India requires an estimated $2.6 trillion to realise targets under the sustainable development goals by 2030. Since the government alone cannot generate or deploy such massive resources for this purpose, it requires collective efforts of both the public and private sectors.
In August 2020, the department of economic affairs had launched the Sustainable Finance Collaborative in partnership with the UNDP.
It included dialogues on various related issues, including barriers to deploying new and innovative modes of financing, such as impact investing, the role of blended finance instruments, green finance instruments for sustainable development and sustainability-related disclosures by companies.