"CMIA helped to explain the potential for project-based mechanisms across a variety of constituencies and is a key voice driving the conversation on results-based finance and sector approaches for scaling-up emission reduction investments. We urgently need input from organisations like CMIA to operationalise Art 6 of the Paris Agreement."

Mr. Franz-Josef Schafhausen, former Director General Climate Change, European and International Affairs, Federal German Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety

UK Centre for Greening Finance & Investment (UKCGFI): Creating a New National Centre

1st March 2021 by CMIA

New national Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI) will unlock opportunities for the UK to lead in greening finance and financing green.

The UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI) is a national centre established to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally. It will unlock opportunities for the UK to lead in greening finance and financing green.

Aims and Objectives

The ultimate vision of CGFI is for financial institutions being able to access and use consistent, timely, and appropriate climate and environmental data and analytics for any point on planet earth historically, in the present, and projected into the future, for every major sector, and for the complete spectrum of material climate and environmental factors.

  • Deliver quality-assured, relevant, well-described, scientifically robust, and openly accessible climate and environmental data and analytics to all financial institutions, suitable for a wide range of use cases.
  • Implement an open, interoperable data, and information e-infrastructure that will provide an easy-to-use platform for practitioners to access, build-off and integrate the climate and environmental data and analytics, from CGFI and others, and combine with their proprietary data and analytics.
  • Co-develop flagship use cases with financial institutions that demonstrate the benefits of integrating climate and environmental analytics and produce open risk frameworks, indicators, and analytics, underpinned by the best available science and robust translational research.
  • Create a focal point for UK and international outreach and for stakeholders to engage and access CGFI services, training, data, and capabilities.
  • Mainstreaming ‘spatial finance’ – the integration of geospatial data and analysis into financial theory and practice – will be one of the key priorities for CGFI. Space is now the finance frontier.

Creating a New National Centre

In February 2020 a call for proposals (‘Climate and Environmental Risk for Resilient Finance’) was launched by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Innovate UK, both part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), for a new £10 million research and innovation centre to support the integration of the financial risks of climate and environmental change into mainstream financial decision-making. This was one of the key recommendations made by the UK Green Finance Taskforce in 2018 and contained in the UK Green Finance Strategy in 2019.

A consortium led by the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment was selected to establish the CGFI in December 2020 with this announced in early 2021. CGFI will begin its work at the start of April 2021 ahead of COP26.

The Team

To achieve this exciting vision, the CGFI consortium brings together a world-leading, multidisciplinary team. The senior leadership team are all globally recognised experts in their respective fields with a track record of delivering high-impact research, tools, analytics, and information relevant to a range of financial institution needs.

Visit this site to find out more about the new centre and its team: http://bit.ly/UK_CGFI