Greening the Rules of the Game: How Sustainability Factors Are Being Incorporated into Financial Policy and Regulation - Inquiry Working Paper 18/01 May 2018

Over the past four years, the number of measures taken by financial policymakers and regulators to promote green and sustainable finance has significantly increased. This report is the first to chart this ‘quiet revolution’ and analyse this important new trend in terms of the geographical, sectoral and thematic spread of measures. Key findings include:

Globally, the number of sustainable finance measures has doubled between 2013 and 2017; International measures to promote sustainable finance have quadrupled between 2013 and 2017; Developed and developing countries have different priorities; Europe and Asia account for nearly two thirds of the measures. The sectoral pattern has changed significantly; Slightly less than half of measures (44%) are mandatory in nature.

Many gaps in understanding and practice remain. We identify five key priorities for future work in this area: Classifying interventions, Evaluating impact,Policy and market linkages, Cross-country comparisons,International norms.