Bankers for Climate Campaign
- Anders Langworth
Bankers for Climate founder, Anders Langworth, highlights his climate change movement for employees in the global financial industry.
Global call to back Bankers for Climate
Anders Langworth, Deputy Head of Group Sustainable Finance at Nordea, the Nordic financial services group headquartered in Finland, has founded Bankers for Climate, a new global campaign to drive industry ownership and action on climate change.
It suddenly hit me – I want to do more. I want to push my own industry to be a force for good and to improve business resilience. I was attending the Global Climate Action Summit 2018 and was inspired by the strong commitments from leaders of countries, large companies and academia. I am fortunate enough to work with sustainable finance, but that was suddenly not enough. We are all individuals and we can all do something. If we unite and collaborate, I know that we can make a significant impact. I believe that colleagues in the financial industry want to act but feel that they don’t know how. That’s why and when the idea Bankers for Climate was born.
Driving change
Bankers for Climate is a climate change movement for employees in the global financial industry. The purpose is to drive change from within the industry and show the world that bankers can unite and collaborate for a good cause. It’s a call for action where people sign up once. Low effort. Low barrier to action. When we have mobilised a high volume of support, we will initiate contact with leaders of the financial industry, to increase their efforts related to climate change adaptation.
Climate change poses serious risks to the global economy and will have an impact across most sectors. In the World Economic Forum Annual Risk Report 2019, climate change-related issues are identified as the three main risks in regard to likelihood and impact. The financial industry plays an important role in fighting climate change. Banks and other financial institutions manage enormous amounts of capital, which in its essence is the number one tool to drive change, by reallocating this to more sustainable solutions.
Building resilience
People might think that this is something for tree-huggers trying to save the world. Well… that is simply wrong. The financial industry interconnects with all industries, which means that our customers and the companies we invest in will be affected by climate change-related challenges. With customers and business in mind, together we need to build resilience and prepare climate change mitigation and adaptation. Essentially, this is about making sure we stay relevant in the future – a task on every CEO’s desk.
No matter what you do in your daily job, this is both the opportunity and the time to act.
Don’t wait, join the movement by signing up at www.bankersforclimate.com – and help me spread the word to our fellow bankers.