Building Bridges 2021 is liveBuilding Bridges is back and recharged for 2021. This week-long series of events focused on sustainable finance for the SDGs is scheduled to take place in Geneva between November 29 and December 2. As co-founder and strong supporter of the first Building Bridges in 2019, the SDG Lab is excited to see this year’s event take-off with a sharpened focus on shaping the global sustainable finance agenda and accelerating the transition to a global economic model aligned with the needs of sustainable and just societies.
Commenting on today’s kick-off, SDG Lab Director Nadia Isler shared, “It is my hope that after the curtain drops on Building Bridges 2021 we will come out of the week with a solidified understanding of what sustainable finance is about and have new and concrete partnerships around solutions that are truly sustainable, focused on people, societies, and the planet.” To hear more from the SDG Lab Director on Building Bridges 2021, watch the below clip.
Get involved
Now is the moment to get involved in shaping the Building Bridges Week programme. A Call for Events is live, enabling all interested Swiss-based organizations active in sustainability and finance the opportunity to contribute their content and ideas. The organizers have set aside space in the programme for diverse events related to the Week’s three themes for 2021: impact and transparency, supply demand mismatch, and fintech for the SDGs.
To find out more - and to apply - visit this page.
The following text is the official press release of Building Bridges 2021. To view the source, click here.
Switzerland to hold a unique ground-breaking event for sustainable finance and the SDGs
- Between November 29 and December 2, Switzerland will hold an event that aims to bring new levels of ambition and impact to finance and sustainability.
- Building Bridges 2021 is a powerful opportunity to accelerate achievement of the SDGs by mobilizing finance. The event brings together International Geneva, a multilateral hub for SDGs, the Swiss Financial Center and the federal and local Swiss authorities.
- The organizers invite the community at large to submit event proposals to Building Bridges Week around three cross cutting themes with the objective to stimulate deeper levels of dialogue, foster initiatives and ensure ongoing action Geneva.
May 6, 2021 – Switzerland will be the capital of sustainable finance later this year, reflecting its increasing importance as a leading center of excellence for sustainable and innovative finance. Building Bridges, an action-oriented, multi-stakeholder movement launched in Geneva in 2019 to shape the global agenda and the future of sustainable finance, will hold its second edition from November 29, 2021 until December 2, 2021. Leveraging the unique Swiss and Geneva ecosystem, it will bring together a diversity of international actors in the finance, government, the UN, NGOs and academia with a broad spectrum of expertise in finance and SDG implementation.
The second edition of Building Bridges Week will start on November 29, 2021 in Geneva with the Building Bridges Summit. This summit will launch a week of events, and will convene a unique group of key Swiss and international decision makers and world-renowned keynote speakers around a common vision and objective: to accelerate the transition to a global economic model aligned with the imperatives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with finance as a key catalyst for change.
The first edition of Building Bridges in October 2019 brought together over 1000 stakeholders from diverse backgrounds in Switzerland and internationally, including the President of the Swiss Confederation, the Director-General of UN Geneva, and numerous CEOs and opinion leaders representing NGOs, business, academia and other international organizations. The program and keynote speakers of the 2021 event will announced in summer 2021.
Call for events around three cross-cutting themes to unlock opportunities
The week Building Bridges is built on marrying high-level support with broad community engagement to enable the creation of a true movement and collective ownership, rather than one-way dialogue.
The week will comprise a crowd-sourced program of events planned by the Building Bridges Community in a range of formats that stimulate deeper levels of dialogue and collaboration including: panel discussions; roundtables; workshops, training sessions, pitches and networking events. This week is open to the entire sustainable development and finance community.
Organizations are invited to submit event proposals to the event program around three cross cutting themes:
- Impact and Transparency: This theme will address topics such as the newest global developments related to disclosures and taxonomies, including how these frameworks account for transition and how to move beyond a focus on climate to include other SDGs; data issues including availability, measurability, comparability, and quality; operationalization of ESG, impact measurement and reporting.
- Supply Demand Mismatch: This theme will explore how to rethink mainstream investment strategies to be more comprehensive, impact-driven, and SDG-focused; how to scale up successful strategies and develop new innovative financing instruments; and how to leverage different types of capital to drive more capital to sustainable companies and projects.
- Fintech for the SDGs: This theme will showcase and examine the newest solutions in fintech that support sustainability including financial technologies that advance certain SDGs, technological tools that improve transparency and impact measurement, and technology itself as a financing instrument. It will also review the enabling factors necessary to foster the development of sustainable fintech.
Building Bridges is a joint initiative, launched by Swiss public authorities, the finance industry, the United Nations and other International Geneva partners. The 2021 event will build on the success of the 2019 edition by leveraging the unique Geneva-based ecosystem of finance and sustainable development to develop concrete and actionable targets. A number of additional stakeholders have decided participate to join the Building Bridges movement, notably the SECO, UNEP FI, WBCSD, AMAS and NGOs.