G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group

Recognizing the need to coordinate on sustainable finance goals and priorities, as well as on the use of public policy incentives, G20 members have re-established the Sustainable Finance Study Group and upgraded it to the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG), co-chaired by China and the United States, with Secretariat support provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In 2021, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors asked the SFWG to develop a multi-year G20 Sustainable Finance Roadmap identifying the G20’s sustainable finance priorities, and to carry out focused work on three specific priority areas:

1) Improving the comparability, and interoperability of approaches to align investments to sustainability goals;

2) Overcoming information challenges by improving sustainability reporting and disclosure; and

3) Enhancing the role of International Financial Institutions in supporting the goals of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda.

Why it matters 

The G20 plays an important role in shaping the international agenda and G20 country policies and highlighted a number of priority areas related to climate mainstreaming: risk management, data access, Paris alignment

Through the Sustainable Finance Roadmap:

• G20 central banks, ministries of finance, regulators, and supervisors are encouraged, on a voluntary basis, to coordinate through the FSB, standards-setters, NGFS, and other bodies, as appropriate, to effectively identify, measure and manage sustainability-related financial risks.
• The SFWG aims to take concrete steps to further advance sustainability data strategies, governance and architecture frameworks that aim to improve data quality and accessibility for the financial system, and promote greater access to public sustainability data, including by developing a shared digital platform to improve accessibility to relevant publicly available sustainability data which is already available.
• The SFWG has developed recommendations on enhancing the Role of International Financial Institutions in supporting the goals of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda and the G20 encourages MDBs to pursue alignment of their operations to the goals of the Paris Agreement within ambitious timeframes, while continuing to support the 2030 Agenda.
• The SFWG has developed high-level, voluntary principles for developing alignment approaches and recommendations for international coordination

Main areas of work related to climate mainstreaming:

The Roadmap focuses on five key areas:

• Focus Area 1: Market development and approaches to align investments to sustainability goals;
• Focus Area 2: Consistent, comparable, and decision-useful information on sustainability risks, opportunities and impacts;
• Focus Area 3: Assessment and management of climate and sustainability risks;
• Focus Area 4: Role of IFIs, public finance and policy incentives; and
• Focus Area 5: Cross-cutting issues.