Aligning finance with sustainability to tackle global environmental and social challenges

Both financial institutions and the broader financial system must manage the risks and capture the opportunities of the transition to global environmental sustainability. The University of Oxford has world-leading researchers and research capabilities relevant to understanding these challenges and opportunities.

Established in 2012, the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group is the focal point for these activities. The Group is multi-disciplinary and works globally across asset classes, finance professions, and with different parts of the financial system. We are the largest such centre globally and are working to be the world's best place for research and teaching on sustainable finance and investment.

Oxford Sustainable Finance Group

Video transcript

We need to make sure that all financial decision making takes account of the environment and of sustainability. And this needs to happen very, very quickly. The Oxford Sustainable Finance Group is a world-leading centre focused on aligning finance with global environmental sustainability. We work very closely with stakeholders across the financial system - banks, asset managers asset owners, insurers, supervisors, central banks, to help them to talk about these problems and co-create solutions and integrate climate change into financial decision making around the world.

We achieve our mission through pioneering research, through teaching and also through engagement, training the next generation of PhD students, to undergraduates, to very senior executives. If we're going to green the global financial system, we need the best people to have the knowledge, to have the networks, to be able to influence.

The community is growing. It's one of the largest concentrations of researchers working on sustainable finance anywhere in the world. We work to create the future of sustainable finance.

IN THE NEWS

Oxford says carbon offsets aren’t helping net zero as it updates guidance

The University of Oxford has updated its flagship guidance for entities using carbon offsets, calling for a “major course-correction” to get the market on track, reports IPE. Oxford Sustainable Finance Group researcher Injy Johnstone commented: “the vast majority of current offsetting approaches are not getting us any closer to net zero emissions, and trust in the concept of ‘offsetting’ has been so badly damaged that some organisations are moving away from using the term at all."