Many of the Sustainable Finance Roadmap Recommendations may have regulatory components but this should not hold back public and private sector leaders from making voluntary changes and challenging others to do the same.

The SSF Recommendations are targeted at a whole-of-system change. These recommendations do not simply rely on ‘adding environmental and social’ factors into existing legislation, norms and frameworks. When implementing these recommendations, key parties should start from first principles and reconsider the status-quo.

Shareholders are critical to capitalism; without their risk capital, organisations could not operate. We see a sustainable financial system as one where impacts (planet, people and profit) are afforded equal importance.

The Roadmap priority areas and subsequent recommendations are interconnected. Although the Roadmap identifies four higher priority actions, as has been shown internationally, action is necessary across all priority areas to drive the transformation (e.g. responsibility, governance).

New Zealand is not starting from scratch. The international policy landscape for sustainable finance has largely been set. Many of the Sustainable Finance Forum recommendations have domestic or international precedents and we can learn from these examples.