The report is aimed at multiple audiences, notably issuers and investors. It is designed as a “Swiss Army knife” to help them to assess their contributions to the UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) and to identify, prioritize and improve their SDG footprint in their corporate strategy and portfolio management.

A key challenge such parties face is measuring their actual, evidence-based SDG contributions be it at organization / company or project levels. Natixis aims through this report to contribute to the effort to address such methodological challenges.

This report acts as a call to action and integrity, taking into account that collectively, companies, banks, ESG agencies and governments are not yet delivering the necessary actions or developing the necessary tools to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

In 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda setting out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets of varying degrees of precision accompanied by more than 200 indicators intended to monitor progress.

Covering areas as diverse as poverty reduction, education, health, global warming and the protection of natural heritage, the 2030 Agenda has served as a rallying cry for governments, businesses and investors to explore their positioning against the SDGs and identify areas for improvement.

Our SDG Survey of Investors

Investors have considerable leverage to set integrity standards and drive forces in sustainable finance, given their upstream position in the investment chain. On this basis, our report includes the results of a survey of 42 investors^[1], representing 14 trillion dollars of assets under management, in an effort to understand their appetite and expectations around the SDG, and to discover how the goals are integrated in practice into the portfolio management process.

Leading player in Green & Sustainable Finance

Natixis was recently named Most Innovative Investment Bank for Climate Change and Sustainability at The Banker’s Investment Banking Awards 2018, and this new report reflects our strategy to continue to innovate in our development of Green & Sustainable Finance solutions.

[1] Conducted online from August 1st – September 13th 2018