Margarita Delgado: CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer) Club Inauguration

Remarks by Ms Margarita Delgado, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain, at Deloitte, Madrid, 29 September 2023.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

1 Why sustainability is important for regulators?

First, let me briefly recall two of the key milestones that underpin the implications of the climate change and sustainability issues for the financial sector:

• The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, which includes, among its long-term objectives, "making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development", thus, highlighting for the first time, the relevant role of the financial sector in this matter and,
• The Action Plan on financing sustainable growth adopted by the European Commission in March 2018, which sets out the roadmap to boost the role of finance in achieving a well-performing economy, that is, to further connect finance with sustainability. In addition to reorienting capital flows towards a more sustainable economy, this Plan aimed at mainstreaming sustainability in risk management, for which achievement incorporating sustainability in prudential requirements was set as one of the key actions to be undertaken.

These two political initiatives made it already clear that the financial sector has an important role to play both in terms of supporting the transition towards a climate neutral and sustainable economy, and for managing financial risks that this transition may entail and stemming from other ESG factors. This is also explicitly recognized in the Commission's Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy (2021) and the CRD.