Representatives of the financial centers Montréal and Frankfurt met in Frankfurt for a working visit and discussed the future of their further cooperation on the 29th of November 2023. The focus was on the topic of Sustainable Finance. The financial center initiatives Finance Montreal and Frankfurt Main Finance had already signed a joint declaration of intent in June of this year to support the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), which has a branch in both financial centers. The financial centers are to cooperate more closely, particularly in the areas of research and capacity building, to support the ISSB in establishing a global baseline for sustainability reporting.
After the welcome at Frankfurt Main Finance and Ernst & Young’s Eschborn office, the ISSB team presented the recently published standards for sustainability reporting in detail at its Frankfurt office. It also presented further milestones of the organization since its foundation in 2021 at the COP 26 World Climate Conference in 2021. There was a clear consensus among the representatives of both financial centers to promote the ISSB standards as a global baseline and to put traceability and transparency first in this process.
Other points of contact for the delegation from Montreal were the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, the House of Finance at Goethe University and the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. The Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany (GSFCG), which plays an important role in the cooperation between Frankfurt and Montréal, was also heavily involved in the organization of the visit and was part of the two-day programme.
In addition, the “Wirtschaftsförderung Frankfurt” and the “Frankfurt RheinMain GmbH” also welcomed the delegation to an expert dialog and offered facts and figures on Frankfurt’s financial centre as well as opportunities to discuss topics such as taxation and regulation. Project-related cooperation was welcomed by both sides.
Voices from the Financial Centre Initiatives
"Meeting our counterparts from Frankfurt Main Finance as part of our sustainable finance mission was a must. Six months ago, our two organizations pledged to work together to establish a common framework for sustainable finance capacity-building programs in the financial sector. The constructive exchanges we had at this meeting are essential in order to achieve the objectives we set ourselves. It is only by working closely together, on a global scale, that we will succeed in the essential transition to which we are committed."
"It was a pleasure to welcome our partners from Montréal to Frankfurt. For a successful global transformation of the economy, it is crucial that we join forces for a more sustainable future and support the ISSB to create a global baseline for this. The working visit to Frankfurt was an important step in this direction."
Impressions from the Working Visit
