This year Sibos has upped both its own initiatives around sustainability while presenting a dedicated stream around environmental, social and governance issues, with many of the sessions occurring on day three.</em></p> Sibos is committing to sustainability in multiple aspects this year, by integrating the topic throughout the conference programme and aiming to bring down waste, increase the use of exhibition materials that can be recycled or reused, and reduce the carbon footprint of the event.</p> You can read more about the sustainability strategy here</a>, but as for the conference panels themselves, let’s take a look at the day three highlights with speakers debating key issues such as ESG data, ethical investing and energy transition.</p> With 2022 marked by unprecedented European heatwaves and devastating floods in Pakistan, sustainability has skyrocketed in importance for investors and lenders looking to leverage finance to tackle climate change and social issues. Driven by impending climate deadlines, the sustainable development imperative and rapidly emerging regulation, investor appetite for assets taking environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into account has grown by 15% in the last two years alone.</p> As such, day three plays host to four enlightening panel discussions around ESG. First up, is ‘Harnessing big data towards ESG compliance’. Data is at the heart of ESG, but practitioners have long been plagued by how best to collect and use sustainability data amid a proliferation of disclosure frameworks, a patchy regulation landscape, and – increasingly – corporates and finance players being accused of greenwash when they can’t back up their sustainability claims. This session invites an exchange of ideas from thought leaders and practitioners on how best to move the industry forward.</p> Next on the ESG agenda on day three is ‘Green, clean, and ESG: Rewiring capital markets for a new generation of responsible investors’. It’s well known that millennials and Gen Z are set to drive the biggest trend in investment funds: an ESG-exclusive market. Meanwhile as asset managers start to manage $30 trillion of assets inherited by these generations from baby boomers it’s likely that only green, clean, ethical, sustainable and socially responsible funds will be up for grabs. Speakers from BMO, BNP Paribas, Brown Brothers Harriman, Deutsche Bank and Euroclear look at what this means for the securities market as we know it today.</p> In ‘Spotlight on Sustainable Finance: Stronger ESG, better future’ the panel will take the data lessons from earlier in the day and expand on them by highlighting how companies are looking to embed ESG throughout, and move towards a purpose-driven organisation by leveraging their core assets to enable sustainability. This continues in the afternoon’s ‘Impact of ESG towards a better future’ as four of the industry’s finest seek to understand how the industry can be an enabler to the future success of ESG.</p> The ‘succeeding in uncertain times’ theme also accelerates on Wednesday, as panels ask ‘Can our cybersecurity defences shield us from new super technologies?’ and highlight how collaboration can aid the fight against financial crime. </p> In ‘The hidden value of getting compliance right’, banking experts explore the ways in which the industry can balance compliance requirements and customer experience to create an optimal, and safe, customer journey – in the context of financial crime presenting one of the largest systemic risks to the global economy.</p> If there was ever a session to encapsulate the uncertain times we live in, it’s the sequel to 2021’s memorable ‘Black swans. Gray rhinos. Dragon kings’. A war, a global pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis along with supply chain disruptions have continued to unearth fragility, and in some instances surprise, in global commerce and supply chains. Following on from the acclaimed Sibos 2021 discussion, speakers provide an updated view on how the ecosystem is adapting. This is one which should be experienced by all Sibos goers.</p> Elsewhere during day three, Innotribe’s ‘60 second challenge: Ethical dilemmas’ will see five anthropologists, academics and other experts from around the world reflect on reactive answers from the audience in this fast-paced session. Meanwhile, ‘Let’s get digital: A blueprint for the payments model of the future’ will show increasing industry consensus for instant frictionless payments to become the norm for cross-border, especially in light of blockchain enablement.</p> As always, there’s too much to fully preview during the day, but the Inside Leadership series continues with executives from Bank of America, Barclays, bunq, National Australia Bank, and State Bank of India, in the latest batch of insightful discussions.</p> An eventful day with many takeaways, but perhaps most importantly, the prioritisation of Sibos becoming one of the most sustainable global events, leading much-needed change across the industry, is of the upmost importance and therefore deserves our attention and plaudits.</p>