September Public Lecture: Sustainable Finance: Stephen Nolan (CEO Sustainable Nation Ireland)
20 September: The Custom House: 6.30pm
Since the landmark international agreements supporting sustainable development in 2015 (the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda), much progress has been made in the area of sustainable finance. Dublin has played a significant role in this progress and has recently been named as the European hub for the International Network of Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S), a global organisation dedicated to galvanising the market clustering dynamics attributed to financial centres in support of sustainable development and climate action.
The science community has a vital role to play in ensuring that the institutional contexts and market narratives determining financial market movements are formulated using information that is material to stabilising the global climate and achieving sustainable development. A good example of this is the European Academies Science Advisory Council’s (EASAC’s) recent recommendations that the classification and regulation of forestry biomass, in the context of a carbon neutral energy source, accurately reflect the carbon payback periods of the particular biomass in question and that this is appropriate for the relevant policy timeframe.
Stephen Nolan, CEO of Sustainable Nation Ireland, has been pioneering sustainable finance in Ireland for the last 5 years and has been appointed strategic advisor to and coordinator of the UN FC4S work centred in Dublin. Stephen will give an outline of what sustainable finance is and describe existing markets and current activity. In addition, he will share his insights into the role of and opportunities for the science community in this space.