Those that embrace Sustainable Transformation are seeing successful results as their willingness to change and innovate helps maintain long-term profitability. But despite this, many companies are still struggling to make the business case for sustainability, particularly in today’s disruptive economic climate.
So, what competitive advantages does Sustainability Transformation bring, and how should financial executives demonstrate this to stakeholders?
Listen to the full interview with Helge Muenkel, Chief Sustainability Officer at DBS Bank.
Conversation highlights
How finance firms can deliver sustainability
Financial institutions, like ourselves, they have quite a few different roles. Number one we need to reallocate capital. So the way we look at this is, clearly we're going to move capital away from polluting activities towards lower carbon alternatives.
Why the world needs businesses to accelerate SX
Let's acknowledge that the world is in a stress situation. There is no second guessing. We have a global food crisis, we have a global energy crisis, and we are heading towards a low growth, high inflation scenario, maybe even a global recession.
In the short term I can see even developed nations, like those in Europe and the UK, but especially also those in developed countries, really prioritise energy security and energy cost because it's important to serve the people and actually also to keep political stability. So I don't think there's any easy solution in the short run.
What I also believe is that if we look beyond this really tough time that's coming up – and again I reiterate, I don't think there is an easy fix at all in the short run – then I actually believe it may even accelerate the transition for a variety of reasons, one of which actually is energy independence. So we do see a lot of companies as well as countries still committed to the transition and in some cases even accelerating it.
