Sustainable Trading Maintains Momentum: Hits 50 Members

The not-for-profit Sustainable Trading initiative, which seeks to transform Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices in financial markets, has added two members, bringing the total since its launch earlier this year, to 50.

BNP Paribas Asset Management and Belgian investment house Degroof Petercam has joined the initiative, which includes banks, exchanges, investment managers, broker dealers and trading technology and service providers.

Sustainable Trading says that its members have completed an initial set best practices covering themes including trading technology infrastructure, environmental business practices, diversity, equity and inclusion, community engagement, employee wellbeing and improved governance practices. Comprising 34 best practices, with 86 individual elements, these practices were approved for distribution to members earlier in December, it adds.

Sustainable Trading says it will also seek to establish and oversee a measurement framework to enable members to extract clear and comparable metrics on progress in their delivery of the practices, facilitating an ethos of continuous ESG improvement.

“We see Sustainable Trading as an important catalyst of change within the value chain of the asset management industry,” says Emmanuel Blanc, head of sell-side relationship management, BNP Paribas Asset Management. “Joining this organisation will help us to collectively drive change as well as help us to progress the goals of our global sustainability strategy.”

François Wohrer, group head of Degroof Petercam investment banking, adds, “Creating responsible prosperity is at the core of our DNA and business strategy.  We are convinced that we have an active role to play in accompanying positive changes in the financial industry to a more sustainable future. In this regard, we are delighted to join Sustainable Trading and its distinguished list of members. We look forward to helping define industry standards and accelerating the pace of change for ESG within the trading industry. As part of our ESG journey, we are keen to integrate sustainability into the entire value chain which our investment house brings to its clients, of which trading is an integral part.”