Lydia Linna: The sixth Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Investment Case Symposium will take place on 7 March, both in-person in Luxembourg and online. Can you tell us more about the conference?
Nicoletta Centofanti: The Global Landscapes Forum is highly focused on landscape and nature, bringing together experts to discuss how we can foster investments towards a more resilient landscape, as well as enhance and protect biodiversity.
The GLF is a great platform--there’s a mix of different plenary sessions that touch upon many different topics, like climate finance, nature conservation, strengthening forestry. The idea is to cover all the different angles of the challenges and opportunities, to really channel more and more investment towards nature.
Who will be present?
There will be representatives from the UN environmental programme, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank. But there will also be other players that are less commonly associated with sustainable finance, like the Rainforest Alliance, the GIZ, which is the development agency in Germany, the federal ministry for economic cooperation and development of Germany, Finance in Motion, which is an important player in the impact space.
You really have people from institutions--so public players, people from agencies that develop projects--and also investors, like Acumen [a nonprofit impact investment fund] and Mekong Capital [a Vietnam-focused private equity firm].
The Luxembourg government wants to play a key role in pushing and enhancing investment in this space.
So the idea of this platform is to bring together all the actors that have a key role in this space. You need the experts that are able to identify the key projects to be enhanced and developed; you have the public sector that can, of course, provide capital, but also guide and support policy measures to really channel even more capital through, for example, blended finance structures. And then you have the investors that are able to collect and deploy the capital for the projects.
We are very lucky--Luxembourg is one of the sponsors of this initiative. And that’s why the Global Landscape Forum is held in Luxembourg. The Luxembourg government wants to play a key role in pushing and enhancing investment in this space. [Representatives from the Luxembourg government, such as finance minister Yuriko Backes and environment minister Joëlle Welfring, will also participate.]
You will be participating in an “Inspiration hub” session on sustainable finance in Luxembourg. What will you be talking about?
The idea is to explain what we do--as the LSFI, the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative--and what we believe is extremely important to advance the sector. Basically, we give a bit of introduction on Luxembourg and key figures: 54.6% of Luxembourg’s [Ucits] funds are ESG[-aligned], as per the , for example; Luxembourg hosts the first green exchange with the largest market share of green bonds.
So a bit of an introduction on Luxembourg. And then we explain the key players in Luxembourg that have a role basically in pushing and further transitioning towards sustainable finance.
Really, what I believe is great in this conference is that different countries are represented, and all the different sectors that really play a role.
Any particular panels or sessions to look out for?
Another player that is really worth mentioning is the IUCN--the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They do a number of things, but in particular, they track species at risk and provide every year an update in that respect. The numbers are a bit dramatic, but it’s great that they are here. And they will have an expert session on catalysing investment for landscape restoration in agricultural supply chains.
People interested in attending the conference can find more information and register .