Across the globe today, financial institutions are increasingly aware that funding projects now comes with additional responsibilities. There’s an emerging expectation that this investment should help to deliver social and environment benefits as well as a financial return.
As part of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative meeting that took place in Dubai last year, eight banks from within the UAE came together to sign the ‘Dubai Declaration on Sustainable Finance’. As part of this, they established a new fund that will help to support a range of sustainable projects within the UAE over the next 5-10 years, including large-scale programmes and smaller community initiatives.
This was a really positive step forward for both Dubai and the rest of the UAE. The challenge facing the finance, business and construction communities now, will be to come together and define a way of working that gives all parties the confidence to move forward and start to use this capital to support real-life projects. (Arcadis.com)
