Exclusive: London holds the crown as the world’s greenest finance hub
London reigns supreme as the world’s greenest finance hub, racing ahead of its European rivals to claim the sustainability crown.
The City leapfrogged Amsterdam to nab top spot in a closely watched index ranking the world’s biggest finance hubs by their green credentials.
The capital has the best sustainability standards in the world, hosting a vibrant green finance sector that is at the cutting edge of developing new financial products to combat climate change.
Its renewable energy infrastructure, compounded by access to deep, highly skilled talent pools and a booming green finance sector makes London the cream of the crop of the world’s most environmentally friendly finance centres.
The capital was propelled up the table by the government implementing measures to stimulate Britain’s green finance sector, such as raising £10bn by issuing the UK’s first ever sustainable sovereign bond, Z/Yen Group, who produces the index, said.
The index incorporates less environmentally focused metrics, such as tax and cost of competitiveness, to produce the overall rankings. However, even when stripping out these factors to focus only on green metrics, London still beats every other finance centre in the world.
Professor Michael Mainelli, executive chairman, Z/Yen, told Morning Wire: “London’s reputation for green finance has always been strong but has been strengthened by a renewed focus, including the work of the Green Finance Institute, and the issuance of the first UK sovereign green bond.”
Despite losing its crown, Amsterdam is the second greenest finance hub in the world, according to Z/Yen Group. European cities dominated the top of the table, with Zurich and Luxembourg coming fourth and fifth respectively.
San Francisco and Los Angeles were the only cities in the top 10 not on the continent.
The news comes as Chancellor Rishi Sunak launched a new regime yesterday which will force big businesses, large money managers and institutional investors to reveal their sustainability credentials.
The so-called sustainability disclosure requirements are intended to prevent firms from duping investors into channeling money into assets that are advertised as green, but are environmentally damaging.