Challenges for the industry and financial market

Are industries and the financial market sustainable enough? No, not according to many researchers all over the world. Soon several important key questions will be addressed on this topic. Starting 15 April a webinar series on sustainable transformation of finance and business industry will be given, hosted by LUSEM and associate professor Susanne Arvidsson. The webinar series will cover many aspects of sustainability issues and will be presented through four webinars in April and May.

Aims and goals

Susanne Arvidsson, Coordinator of the EVRACSI Initiative, explains aims and goals with the upcoming webinar series:

"We are in the middle of a challenging period where both industry and the financial market must undergo a comprehensive transformation towards becoming more sustainable. To drive this process, a number of strong international regulations and initiatives are being launched this year in the form of, for example, the NFRD (non-financial reporting directive), the EU Taxonomy and the TCFD framework (Task force for Climate related financial disclosure). Through increased transparency and comparability of sustainability performance and risks, we hope to be able to achieve that financial flows are redirected and accelerated towards sustainable investments. It is important to gather different actors and discuss what the main challenges are and how to help achieve an effective and successful transition. The EVRACSI webinars are our contribution to this learning process in conjunction with SDG 17."

Theme and key questions

The theme of the webinar series, which is a part of the EVRACSI initiative, is Achieving sustainable transformation of finance and business industry: Challenges and future directions. The questions addressed during the webinars are:

• What can regulators and policymakers do to empower businesses and financial markets in the transformation to more sustainable development?
• What are the key components and mechanisms for enabling sustainability to be further integrated into financial market strategies?
• What roles do corporate disclosure and transparency play in accelerating this change?
• What themes and perspectives are needed on the research agenda to facilitate the required sustainable transformation in the finance and business industry?

The webinars will be given digitally on the following dates: 15 April, 22 April, 6 May and 19 May.