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Sustainable Finance

A strategic advantage for the benefit of the environment, society and economy alike

Featured - 4 items

Net Zero Insights 2022

Setting sail for a carbon-neutral future

Greenwashing and greenwishing

A regulatory view

How insurers turn ambition into action

Get insights into the complex impact of ESG on the insurance world

Webinar series: ESG for Swiss asset managers

Episode 5 | Access the recording

Sustainable development requirements have arrived on the agenda of the financial services sector

  • Clients and society are asking for them.
  • Legislation demands them.
  • Standard-setters require them.

Society understands the financial services sector as an enabler and contributor to a sustainable future. Banks, insurers, private equity, impact investors, pension funds, family offices and other market players are seen as key drivers in financing and realising the transformation to a sustainable economy.

The actors in the sector have understood that they need to face the challenges that arise when incorporating these requirements into their practices. It leads to institutions being forced to cope with issues and questions that are complex, require an integrated approach and generate evolving responsibilities.

Society and legislators are transforming their demands

Sticking with the status quo is not an option anymore. Growth needs to become inclusive, common values need to be shared and transparency must be provided to explain the impacts that the business has on environmental, social and governance-related risks and opportunities. The legislative pressure on the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment strategies and processes is growing every day. Regulators around the world are heavily involved in shaping the sustainability agenda. The EU has already enacted new ambitious legislation to support EU-wide sustainable growth and a more sustainable financial system. Further proposals and measures are planned with the goal of further reinforcing the Paris Climate Agreement and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Similar developments are also expected in Switzerland.

Our approach to enabling you to understand and manage sustainable finance opportunities

Becoming an organisation that is fully equipped to find and make sustainable investments is demanding. The inclusion of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) criteria in an investment process is new. Practical questions we often hear are:

  • How can we ensure the adherence to current and future regulations and standards we are committed to?
  • How can we define strategic ambitions?
  • How can we ensure that risks do not hamper the financial returns?
  • How can we find our way through definitions, different labels and quality marks?
  • How should we understand, evaluate and manage ESG risks and opportunities?
  • How shall we define responsible goals and incentives for profitable growth?
  • What are we meant to measure, monitor and report, and how?
  • How can we operationalise a sustainable mindset throughout the entire organisation?

To enhance strategy, unlock value and build trust we will have a constructive, transparent dialogue with you and your stakeholders. We help you by:

  • providing a dedicated team of local and international experts
  • applying an integrated approach across the different areas of expertise (e.g. legal, risks, customer-centricity, strategy, processes) needed
  • relying on the experiences gained resulting from various projects and clients’ best practices.

Our services

Our services are designed for all actors in the financial services market. We enable you to navigate the complexities of mapping opportunities and risks relating to sustainability by:

Ensuring compliance and considerations resulting from regulatory developments and strategic aspirations

We review and assess the regulatory requirements while utilising the opportunities of sustainable finance impacting your business.

Mainstreaming sustainable finance

We support you in integrating sustainable finance into traditional investment processes, from strategy to execution, by identifying ESG risks and formulating and implementing responsible investment strategies and policy development.

Operationalising and implementing sustainable finance

We help you operationalise comprehensive, responsible portfolio management, appropriate risk management processes and a customer-centric organisation.

 

Ensuring quality and building trust through transparency

We support you in ensuring adherence to internal and external reporting practices and requirements.

Unlocking new opportunities and cost-efficient digital tooling

We provide you with our data-driven tooling and products that screen your portfolio, evaluate the risk exposure and allow fully-fledged monitoring and reporting of these.

 

Being a partner and accompanying you through the entire sustainable finance value chain

Sharing our knowledge with you and guiding you through the ongoing developments with a view to regulatory changes, stakeholder expectations and evolving standards.

Our pillars to be compliant with Sustainable Finance

Regulatory Radar

Sustainable Finance Regulatory Radar

Given the green regulatory tsunami, there is an inherent risk of missing out on critical topics or taking required actions too late. The Sustainable Finance Regulatory Radar, a web-based platform, is our response to the regulatory avalanche, allowing users to keep track of the latest sustainability-related trends worldwide. We use it to provide clients with a comprehensive overview of the latest regulatory developments in various jurisdictions globally, including impact assessments and recommended actions.

Learn more

Contacts:

Strategic Regulatory Gap Analysis

Strategic Regulatory Gap Analysis on Sustainable Finance

Adapting to the constantly changing sustainable finance regulatory landscape and being compliant is key for financial institutions. In order to implement the various new requirements, institutions must be aware of the required changes. Therefore, we offer to conduct Regulatory Gap Analysis comparing status quo and the changes required by law as well as the specific impact of regulatory changes on organisations. By analysing the regulatory gap, we lay the foundations for all of the next steps (e.g. implementation).

Contacts:

Regulatory Transformation

Regulatory Transformation of Sustainable Finance

The implementation of the many new regulatory requirements for Sustainable Finance is a highly challenging task for financial institutions, requiring sustainable finance regulation expertise, in-depth understanding of the business requirements and careful planning with consideration of all relevant aspects. We accompany our clients’ strategic regulatory transformation, providing an integrated approach that aligns the regulatory business requirements with the institution’s specific and strategic priorities complemented by excellent regulatory and market expertise in the field.

Contacts:

Risk Management and Control Framework

Designing ESG-compliant Risk Management and Control Framework

Sustainability risk management is one of the central pillars of the new regulatory and market developments in Sustainable Finance and is one of the most challenging topics for financial institutions in relation to sustainability. We support our clients in designing an ESG Risk Management and Control Framework for the effective management of ESG risks throughout their organisation.

Contacts:

Corporate Governance Structure

Designing ESG-compliant Corporate Governance Structure

With increasing regulatory and market pressure on sustainable finance, financial institutions need a strong and efficient corporate governance structure in relation to sustainability. We help you define the sustainability structure that best suits your needs and ambitions.

Contacts:

ESG Rating Methodology

ESG Rating Methodology on Sustainable Finance

The new sustainability-related regulatory requirements put significant pressure on financial institutions to find the best suitable solutions for their business. This includes exploring the opportunity to use their own ESG rating methodologies to comply with the requirements, as well as providing added value to their clients. We support you with this opportunity.

Contacts:

Macro- and microprudential ESG framework

Support in the review of macro- and microprudential ESG framework

Within their micro- and macroprudential mandate, regulatory bodies have to address climate-related risks. We offer to review/analyse the current framework and the corresponding instruments at their disposal with a view to including sustainability considerations. In addition, we support authorities by providing a market study, which: a) highlights their new supervisory tasks towards market actors, b) stresses their duties towards other regulatory bodies (e.g. providing information) and c) provides an in-depth market overview of key developments in sustainable finance.

Contacts:

EU-SFDR disclosure

Implementation of the EU-SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation)

The EU-SFDR obligates you as a financial market participant to disclose to clients and investors how green your financial products are. Moreover, it stipulates that you must disclose how sustainability risks are integrated into the provision of services, for example, portfolio management and investment advice. Under the EU-SFDR, you must classify your financial products into one of three categories: mainstream, light green or dark green. Additionally, it is required that you carry out a due diligence process to consider the “principal adverse impacts”.

Contacts:

EU-Taxonomy portfolio assessment

Portfolio alignment review regarding the EU-Taxonomy

You are required to carry out an alignment assessment of your portfolio against the EU-Taxonomy, which defines which economic activities of your underlying investments (companies and projects) are considered as sustainable. By doing so, you are allowed to brand your investments as sustainable. The EU-Taxonomy fights greenwashing and improves transparency for sustainable investments.

Contacts:

Climate Risk Reporting

Assessment of climate risks (FINMA circular, TCFD)

Correctly assessing and evaluating climate risks is key to protecting your company value. Therefore, a third-party review of your integrated climate risk framework reduces the risk of being blindsided by any climate risks you have not yet considered and ensures compliant regulatory reporting. Moreover, we are seeing a shift whereby regulators are transmitting current soft laws into strict regulations that need to be adhered to.

Contacts:

PRIIPs KIDs go ESG

PRIIPs KIDs GAP assessment

A tsunami of green regulation is sweeping through the finance industry. The EU Action Plan on Sustainable Finance impacts financial service providers and the real economy. The newly introduced EU Taxonomy, which classifies sustainable economic activities, and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which provides guidance for determining the greenness of financial products, must be taken into account when classifying your PRIIP according to ESG criteria (ESG PRIIP). The PRIIPs Regulation already requires that any applicable ESG information must be included in the ‛What is this product’ section of the KID. To ensure consistency and transparency and to counteract greenwashing, the ESG information for a PRIIP must be disclosed in the KID, with reference to the EU Taxonomy and SFDR requirements.

Learn more

Contacts:

Compensation and Corporate Governance

Designing, reviewing and implementing compensation systems

Companies are all unique – and so are their compensation systems. If it’s to do what it’s meant to do, a compensation system should be a good fit with the company’s strategy. A well-balanced compensation system helps to motivate staff, to foster loyalty and to attract new talent. Our services focus on the “G” dimension of ESG and particularly include:

  • defining reward strategies and developing total compensation frameworks (incl. systematic integration of company-specific ESG aspects)
  • implementing compensation systems (incl. plan rules, tax rulings, etc.)
  • assessing incentives schemes from a tax, financial, regulatory and governance perspective
  • reviewing compensation reports for regulatory compliance and value reporting purposes
  • drafting compensation reports
Contacts:

EQUAL-SALARY Certification and Gender Equality

Demonstrating commitment to gender equality

Gender equality is one of the cornerstones of the “S” dimension of ESG. Our data scientists and multicultural experts are extremely experienced in all matters relating to equal pay. Furthermore, our longstanding partnership with the EQUAL-SALARY Foundation enables us to support organisations from all industries and of all sizes and complexities to close their gender pay gap. Our specific services include:

  • EQUAL-SALARY certification (Learn more)
  • equal pay analysis, guidance and external audits to be compliant with the revised Gender Equality Act (Learn more)
Contacts:

Diversity & Inclusion

Helping you attract, motivate and retain the diverse talent your business needs to flourish

Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is one of the key topics in ESG and becomes more and more an essential focus point in sustainable finance. Based on our experience, we have evolved an approach that systematically addresses the four key components of D&I management: (i) strategy, (ii) analytics, (iii) awareness and education and (iv) inspiration. Our specific services include:

  • D&I strategy design
  • D&I maturity assessment
  • HR dashboard with D&I analytics
  • D&I training and workshops
  • gender pay compass and parental leave compass
Learn more
Contacts:

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Christophe Bourgoin

Christophe Bourgoin

Partner, Investor Reporting and ESG Leader, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 25 37

Email
Dr. Antonios Koumbarakis

Dr. Antonios Koumbarakis

Sustainability & Regulatory Leader, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 45 23

Email
Marc Lehmann

Marc Lehmann

Operational Excellence & ESG Transformation Leader, PwC Switzerland

Tel: +41 58 792 26 50

Email
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