Why the TRUST Finance?

By enabling investors to re-orient investments towards more sustainable technologies and businesses, these measures will be instrumental in making Europe climate neutral by 2050 and will make the EU a global leader in setting standards for sustainable finance.

This strategy acknowledges that sustainable finance is a growing trend in the financial field: the latest Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA, 2020) study confirms a very high demand for ESG expertise in financial industry. The client demand as motivator for investment organisations to consider ESG factors grew by 20 percentage points since 2017 in the US and 90% of investment.

Professionals expect their firm’s commitment to ESG will increase further. Moreover, Google Trends recorded an increase in popularity levels for ESG. At the same time, a LinkedIn analysis among 1 million investment professionals found that only 0,7% had disclosed sustainability-related skills.

This evidence confirms a growing gap in the way sustainability in general, and ESG data, are understood and addressed by financial and business executives. Moreover, sustainable finance is still a niche topic in business studies, European Higher Education Institutions (HEI) need to propose more courses about this topic to train future executives in this field, in order to accompany the shift of the sector.

To bridge this skill gap, this project will offer students a 360-degree panorama of knowledge and competences needed to put sustainability at the core of financial decision making, through a sustainable finance courses.