New York, 16 July 2019 – A global partnership of some of the world’s largest organizations today launched two new knowledge platforms – the Green Industry Platform and the Green Finance Platform – at the High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development in New York. These platforms provide the financial and private sectors with the latest research, data, guidance, and tools from leading experts and institutions to help green their operations.
The need for practical and targeted knowledge to support the transition to inclusive green economies is more urgent than ever, with recent reports showing the global decline of natureand calling for unprecedented action to reach climate targets set out in the Paris agreement.
The Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) hosts a wealth of existing knowledge to support greener business, finance, and policy, from the return on investment on renewable energy investments to green bonds, sustainable infrastructure, green standards and regulations, etc. The platforms offer everything from global-scale assessments on flows of sustainable finance to highly specialised guidance notes on “turning waste into gold” in the bio-energy sector in Africa.
Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and current President and Chair of the Global Green Growth Institute welcomed the launch of the two new platforms,
“These are especially exciting times for the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP), already the world’s largest dedicated repository of green growth resources, case studies, and national documents,” he said.
Green Economy Approaches That Work in Policy, Business and Finance
The Green Industry Platform and the Green Finance Platform will build on the existing Green Growth Knowledge Platform, which offers the latest know-how to support green policymaking at the national level. Users can browse by sector, country, region, or cross-cutting theme, including gender, jobs, climate change, circular economy, and natural capital.
“The green economy offers tremendous opportunity for businesses, financial institutions, governments, and people – it is the economy of the future,” Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UN Environment, said. “Quick and easy access to the latest knowledge and innovation is critical to ensuring we are able to build on good practices that already exist and ensure even greater benefits for nature and people.”
The Green Industry Platform will empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with technical knowledge to green their input materials, end products, and operations, as well as evidence that this will improve their bottom lines.
Welcoming the launch of the two new platforms, Li Yong, Director General of United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), said, “UNIDO welcomes the expansion of the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership to its new focus on industry through the Green Industry Platform, introduced in parallel with the Green Finance Platform. The Green Industry Platform is evolving to become a critical tool SMEs to engage in global efforts towards inclusive and sustainable industrial development.”
“As SMEs employ up to 60% of the global workforce; their full involvement in the transition to an inclusive green economy is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” he added. “The new Green Industry Platform will equip SMEs with sector- and region-specific information, guidance, and tools to grow their businesses by greening their operations or explore new green business models in emerging green industries.”
The Green Finance Platform will provide banks, insurance, and investment firms with a one-stop shop for the latest financial sector innovations to start, scale, and measure their contribution to a green economic transition. It will feature new tools for businesses and investors to assess natural capital risks and opportunities; guiding principles on responsible banking, insurance, and finance; and global reports on aligning the financial system with sustainable development.
“Combating climate change and encouraging green growth requires all communities and sectors to work together based on sound research and timely information and data,” Ángel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, said. “We are pleased to partner in the launch of the two new platforms to expand the impact of the GGKP to the industry and finance communities.”
Moving forward, the partnership will work to connect the policy, finance, and business communities together in a neutral space to incentivize, finance, and put into operation green and inclusive practices.
The Green Growth Knowledge Partnership is led by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNIDO and the World Bank.
The GGKP benefits from strategic funding from Switzerland, Germany, the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) initiative, the MAVA Foundation, and GGGI as well as programmatic funding from the Netherlands.
NOTES TO EDITORS
About the UN Environment Programme
UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. UNEP works with governments, the private sector, civil society and with other UN entities and international organizations across the world.
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