Sustainable Financial Management

New "Karlsruhe Award"

For the third time, Karlsruhe has been the venue of the "Global Sustainable Finance Conference". 80 managers from all over the world positioned in politics, economy, and above all the finance sector compared notes on how investments for climate protection and environment, besides state funding, can be put in motion.

"They take on the responsibility of thinking in representation of a lot of people so that humanity and earth have a future," mayor Dr. Frank Mentrup embraced the conference's participants, amongst them the president of the EU-LAC Foundation, the former EU-commissioner and Austrian foreign minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, at a reception in the city hall. Invited by the Development Bank of Malaysia, the Philippine ambassador Maria Cleofe R. Natividad also arrived from Berlin and attended the first "Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Award". "This is an excellent platform for exchange and networking in favour of a more sustainable future," the ambassador pointed to the necessity of global cooperation for a sustainable development in the economy. Octavio Peralta, general secretary of the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP), thanked the city for its hospitality and especially for the newly created "Karlsruhe Sustainable Finance Award", which is composed of wood and depicts a tree, a human, and a magnifying glass, symbolising the search for harmony. The Karlsruhe Award has been granted in three categories. In the field of Corporate Sustainability, the Indian Yes Bank received the award. Tekun Nasional Malaysia has been awarded in the category of best innovation in the area of sustainable finance products and services, and the DFCC Bank Sri Lanka won it for outstanding sustainable project funding.