The bulk of the investment required to close the SDG financing gap will need to be long-term. Institutional investors, commercial banks, capital market actors, and corporations are however driven by shorter time horizons such as dividends or quarterly reporting requirements that prioritize shareholder value. Shifting a small amount of assets to long-term investment in sustainable development could provide much needed resources for the achievement of the SDGs. GISD is working on solutions that are geared to transforming incentives to encourage longer-term sustainability-oriented behaviour across the investment chain.

 

Solutions

Guidance on Sovereign SDG Bonds

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) necessitates a substantial scaling up of finance and investment. Sovereign SDG bonds are a subset of thematic bonds that are anchored in the SDGs…

Incentivizing Long-termism in Investments

The financial markets have a short-term orientation and private investors have long avoided developing markets due to impediments such as a perception of high risk, low returns, currency volatility…

Model Mandate

The GISD Alliance and International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) established a partnership to publish guidance on how to integrate SDG-alignment in the asset managers’ mandate. This entailed…

SDI-aligned Index

To advance long-termism and incentives for sustainable development, GISD sought to provide investors with a longer-term sustainability-oriented benchmark. Based on GISD's sustainable development…