Sustainable finance has become the fastest, growing concern for credit unions and its potential regulation. Sustainable finance regulations would be more favorable to financial inclusion, made possible by Panya Monford and Andy Price of World Council of Credit Unions’ International Advocacy team.

Monford discusses this year’s Global Regulatory Update theme “Building a Sustainable Future” in the latest episode of the World Council’s “The Global Credit Union Podcast.”

“We’ve seen a growing global concern around climate change,” said Monford. “Global regulators want to do their part in supporting solutions to climate change and their doing that through sustainable finance. One of the ways they are doing this is through social and environmental taxonomies. Environmental taxonomies is a list of environmental sustainable economic actives, with the social taxonomy would be similar.”

Sustainable finance regulations finance would impact all areas of credit unions, from operations to investments, added Price. He also noted that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is currently looking at risk weights and its affect on climate change.

 “The G20 just adopted their roadmap to addressing climate related financial risks. Something real exiting for credit unions, they’ve given direction to include the social benefits and how that plays into climate goals. This I think is fantastic credit unions,” said Price.

World Council releases its regulatory update to credit unions and financial cooperatives on an annual basis to prepare them for the year ahead. The latest edition is available here.