Paolo Angelini: Long-term investing and sustainable finance - challenges and perspectives
Welcome address by Mr Paolo Angelini, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the Bank of Italy and Long Term Investors (LTI) Workshop "Long-term investors' trends: theory and practice", Rome, 11 July 2022.
The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.
- Introduction
I am glad to welcome you to the third Banca d'Italia and LTI joint Workshop on 'Long-term investors' trends: theory and practice'. We held the previous edition online. This year we can again benefit from being here in person. However, thanks to one of the few positive consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, we will also have remote interaction, to broaden participation as much as possible.
I am very happy about our continued collaboration with LTI. Directing investments toward long-term objectives contributes to durable, sustainable and inclusive economic growth and to the stability of the financial system.
Today, I would like to focus on the issue of sustainability, which is also the topic of two interesting contributions in this workshop.
Banca d'Italia has long been active on this front. Since 2010 we publish an annual Environment Report, documenting the ecological footprint of the Bank and our efforts to reduce it. Last year, during the Italian Presidency of the G20, the Bank played a leading role in defining an ambitious multi-year agenda for sustainable finance and the fight against climate change. One of the cornerstones of the agenda is the attempt to redirect financial flows to support the transition towards a sustainable economy. We took several initiatives aimed at addressing the need for high-quality, granular, and internationally comparable data. In 2022, the Bank also became a member of the Steering Committee of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). Internally, we set up a Climate Change and Sustainability Committee, which helps define the Bank's financial strategy, and a permanent hub of experts to stimulate and coordinate analyses and policy initiatives across the various directorates involved.