The aim of this book is two-fold: to build knowledge of the multiple benefits of energy efficiency and to demonstrate how policy makers and other stakeholders can use existing tools to measure and maximise the benefits they seek.
This resource is also available in French.
France's Financial (Eco) System highlights experience from France in improving the integration of sustainability issues into financial decision-making.
A key area of focus has been on improving information and market analysis. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting requirements were first introduced in the New Economics Regulation law of 2001, and strengthened by the 2010 ‘Grenelle II’ law and 2015 the Law on Energy Transition for Green Growth (EETG).
France has also practised direct public interventions to mobilize capital and enable new markets and expertise to develop. Public financial institutions such as the Caisse des Dépôts and Bpifrance are able to leverage regulated savings accounts and other sources of capital to provide financing in line with sustainability mandates. They committed to mobilising €15 billion towards low-carbon transition by 2017. French institutions have also played a leading role in the development of the green bonds market.
This resource is also available in English.
France's Financial (Eco) System highlights experience from France in improving the integration of sustainability issues into financial decision-making.
A key area of focus has been on improving information and market analysis. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting requirements were first introduced in the New Economics Regulation law of 2001, and strengthened by the 2010 ‘Grenelle II’ law and 2015 the Law on Energy Transition for Green Growth (EETG).
France has also practised direct public interventions to mobilize capital and enable new markets and expertise to develop. Public financial institutions such as the Caisse des Dépôts and Bpifrance are able to leverage regulated savings accounts and other sources of capital to provide financing in line with sustainability mandates. They committed to mobilising €15 billion towards low-carbon transition by 2017. French institutions have also played a leading role in the development of the green bonds market.
Effects of Financial System Size and Structure on the Real Economy: What do we know and what do we not know? provides an overview of the findings in the empirical economics and finance literature on the effects that various financial system characteristics have on real economic outcomes. Although the empirical evidence on various relationships is mixed, there appears to be relatively robust empirical evidence that: financial deepening promotes economic development only up to a certain size of financial systems relative to GDP and that ‘too much finance’ may actually harm economies; that smaller banks tend to have more stable lender-borrower relationships than large banks and that smaller banking institutions extend more credit to SMEs; that market-based banking provides less financing to the real economy than traditional banking while being more prone to financial crisis; and that more concentrated banking markets are less cost efficient.
In the EU, resource efficiency has been high on the political agenda since 2011, when the European Commission first included it as one of the seven flagship initiatives in its Europe 2020 Strategy for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Resource efficiency is not only considered an environmental necessity, but also a political, economic and security opportunity.
This paper first stresses the benefits and opportunities for the EU of improving its resource efficiency. It then explains the added value of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for resource efficiency. It provides practical examples of relevant indicators in the form of the EU Resource Efficiency Scoreboard and a case study showing how the web tool established by NETGREEN can be used in practice. The paper concludes with a number of policy messages.
This Handbook is designed as guidance for policymakers and practitioners to mainstream pro-poor environment and climate concerns into planning, budgeting and monitoring. Mainstreaming is achieved by putting poverty-environment issues at the heart of government—in other words, by taking these issues into mainstream economic decision-making processes, particularly the national and subnational planning and budgeting processes led by ministries of finance, planning and local government,and supported by ministries of environment.
Over the last 10 years, the Poverty-Environment Initiative, a joint programme of the United Nations Development Programme and UN Environment, has successfully supported the integration and implementation of pro-poor, environmental sustainability objectives into national, subnational and sectoral development policies, plans and budgets to contribute to poverty alleviation and an inclusive, green economy. The Handbook provides guidance and concrete examples from PEI experience in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as from other initiatives.