Press Release from Guernsey Finance, Wednesday 17 July, 2024.
His Majesty King Charles III has met with a delegation of sustainable finance experts during his visit to Guernsey.
The King, along with representatives from the Sustainable Markets Initiative, learned about Guernsey’s role as a leading proponent and innovator in the field of sustainable finance and how the island has implemented environmental initiatives within its own infrastructure.
At a meeting organised by Guernsey Finance, the island’s promotional agency for financial services, His Majesty met with the island’s financial services regulator to hear
about the Guernsey Green Fund and Natural Capital Fund designations, both world firsts in environment finance.
The King also discussed the provision of solar energy in the UK with representatives from NextEnergy Group and Carey Olsen, and the positive environmental impact
created through investment into British Sustainable Infrastructure Strategies (BSIF) with representatives from Gresham House and Ocorian.
Also present were Noel Quinn, global head of HSBC, and Emmanuelle Bury of BNP Paribas from The King’s Sustainable Markets Initiative. The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s mandate, which was launched in 2021, and better known as the Terra Carta, has a mission to build a coordinated global effort to enable the private sector to accelerate the achievement of global climate, biodiversity and Sustainable Development Goal targets. The Terra Carta reflects a set of guiding principles that put People, Planet and Nature at the heart of global value creation.
“It was the honour of a lifetime to meet His Majesty on his visit to Guernsey and have the opportunity to discuss with him Guernsey’s credentials as a global leader in
sustainable finance,” said Guernsey Finance Chief Executive Rupert Pleasant.
“As the founder of the Sustainable Markets Initiative and someone who has championed the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss for many decades, The King is extremely knowledgeable in this area.
“I am delighted to confirm that Guernsey Finance and the Sustainable Markets Initiative have agreed to further discuss ways in which Guernsey’s financial services sector can
participate in the variety of Sustainable Markets Initiative task forces and raise awareness of the Terra Carta to financial services firms that use Guernsey and which
are committed to sustainability.”
Background:
NextEnergy Solar Fund, was established in Guernsey in 2014 to accelerate the growth of the solar sector in the United Kingdom. The fund is an accredited Guernsey Green
Fund, a constituent of the FTSE250 index on the London Stock Exchange and owns 100 solar plants across the UK powering the equivalent of over 300,000 homes yearly.
Gresham House has eight British Sustainable Infrastructure (BSIF) Strategies funds domiciled in Guernsey, with more than £900m of capital. BSIF’s impactful greenfield investments include new vertical farms, converting waste into a replacement for fossil fuels and building landscape scale habitat banks, all based in the United Kingdom.
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