Clara Raposo: Central banking and sustainability

Keynote speech by Ms Clara Raposo, Vice-Governor of the Banco de Portugal, at the Sustainable Finance International Conference, organised by Lusíada University, Lisbon, 3 May 2024.

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

Thank you, Professor Álvaro Matias, Professor Isabel Cantista and Professor Theodor Cojoianu, for inviting me and for the kind introductory words. It is always a pleasure to be back in Academia. If you allow me the environmental jargon, it is my natural habitat, very much to my liking.

I start by congratulating Universidade Lusíada, and the organisers of the event, as well as all the participants, for this welcome initiative, which brings us all together to debate one of the most critical issues of our time. Not only for the world of finance, but for the world itself – period. Or, , as UN Secretary General António Guterres strongly stated on many occasions, a critical issue for the livelihood of billions.

The overwhelming challenges posed by climate change require a plurality of effortsto be properly tackled. As Governor Mário Centeno of Banco de Portugal put it some time ago, this is a subject that concerns politicians and policymakers, financial and non-financial firms, universities, NGOs – and, last but not least, what we all are: citizens.

Until a few years ago, whenever central banks talked of "sustainability", it was mostly public finances or credit developments that were at stake: as in "fiscal sustainability" or "debt sustainability". Nowadays, while those notions remain as up to date as ever, it is another concept that claims the spotlight. I mean, of course, "ESG sustainability" – i.e., sustainability in terms of environmental, social and governance factors.