Recent events
UN DESA Global Policy Dialogue on “The Future of Sustainable Development Financing”, 14 April 2022
I had the great pleasure to moderate the Global Policy Dialogue on “The Future of Sustainable Development Financing”, organized by UN DESA, on 14 April 2022. The event looked at how to overcome the great financing divide that currently exacerbates the divergence in development prospects and threatens to undermine achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Experts from around the world explored how to create reliable access to affordable financing as well as how to improve the international system for resolving situations of unsustainable sovereign debt.
The event also introduced a new report, the 2022 Financing for Sustainable Development Report, prepared by the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, which has been coordinated by the Financing for Sustainable Development Office of UN DESA.
More information about the Global Policy Dialogues series by UN DESA can be found here.
Past events
Upper Austria Future Forum & SDG Business Forum 2022, Linz/Austria, 8-9 March 2022
I moderated the plenary session and one of the workshops on day 1 of the Upper Austria Future Forum / SDG Business Forum 2022, which took place on 8-9 March 2022 in Linz, Austria. It was a perfectly organized and truly great and successful event! About 400 participants could not only experience 45 presentations in the plenary and during workshops on the question “How can an industrial region be sustainable?”, but had the opportunity to explore the broad spectrum of sustainable development and the links to innovation, digitalization, employment, and the many transformations we are currently witnessing.
Congratulations to the organizers, Upper Austria Business (the Upper Austrian government’s development agency) and the Austrian Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs! A documentation of the event can be found here.
Photo: Cityfoto – Dr. Roland Pelzl
ESDN Conference 2021: “European Recovery and Resilience Mechanisms – Challenges in systemic approaches in Sustainable Development”, 30 November – 1 December 2021
I had the pleasure to moderate the annual conference 20212 of Europe’s largest network on sustainable development policy and governance, the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN).
The ESDN Conference 2021 focused on the “European Recovery and Resilience Mechanisms – Challenges in systemic approaches in SD” and took place on 30 November – 1 December 2021 as a virtual event. The event was hosted by the ESDN in close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of Slovenia and the SLOGA Platform. It was organized during the EU Presidency of Slovenia in the second half of 2021.
The conference comprised a mix of high-level keynote presentations, panel discussions, and interactive debates among participants using the Exchange Spaces format.
More information about the conference, incl. the agenda, can be found on the ESDN homepage.
World Resources Forum 2021, “A Green Deal for Sustainable Resources”, 12-14 October 2021 – A multi-stakeholder dialogue to put the Earth’s resources at the heart of the global green transition.
The World Resources Forum (WRF) 2021 took place as a hybrid event from 12-14 October 2021. Sessions took place online, but also physically in Switzerland and Ghana. The physical events were also live streamed worldwide. Please find information on the program, conference tracks, speakers, etc. on the WRF 2021 website.
I was moderating two panel discussions during the physical event in Switzerland on Wednesday, 13 October 2021: The first one on “Fostering sustainability in commodity trading & finance: the role of transparency and technology”, and the second one on “’Green Mining’ – can we move from vision to reality?”
The governance, management and use of natural resources play a pivotal role in the global transition towards green, low-carbon and resilient economies. Such policies and processes are decisive for humankind’s ability to successfully cope with the interlinked environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Only by having in place sustainable, equitable and inclusive processes for harnessing resources, the transition can deliver distributed and long-lasting environmental, economic and social benefits.
This is why the WRF 2021 focused on “A Green Deal for Sustainable Resources” and, in so doing, aimed at providing the grounds for stakeholders from policy, science, industry and civil society to come together and engage in an open and inspiring dialogue to discuss the most pressing challenges and co-create solutions for a prosperous future.
Bank Symposium Wachau (BSW) – BSW Spezial „Green Banking“, 1 July 2021
The Bank Symposium Wachau Special on the topic of “Green Banking” took place on 1 July 2021. It was full of interesting and topical presentations, parallel workshops and lively exchanges during the plenary discussions. It was a great pleasure for me to moderate a half day of this event! Many thanks to the great team of the BSW and RIM Management as well as to the wonderful participants!
There is a growing awareness in the sector that banks are playing a central role in the further development of a sustainable economy, especially around climate change and achieving climate neutrality. The financial sector has an important steering power!
This goes far beyond “green products” on the assessment side and will reach the core business of banks, the lending activity and risk management. In addition, there will be new reporting obligations for banks and all other businesses.
