Stockholm (NordSIP) – At the occasion of the High-Level Expert Group meeting on Sustainable Finance today (30 August), the non-for-profit independent platform Stockholm Green Digital Finance announced the launch of a blockchain-based solution for validating green investments, in partnership with the Swedish asset manager Öhman and the fintech startup Hiveonline.
According to Cecilia Repinski, Executive Director at Stockholm Green Digital Finance, with an expansion of sustainable finance comes the need of greater scrutiny and monitoring of the so-called green investments. “Our aim is to help grow the green bond market by lowering the threshold for issuers and enabling investors to verify impact, as well as stimulating growth of other green investment products,” she says. “The application of blockchain technology and big data will offer companies and investors a cost-effective way to validate sustainability claims regarding fair trade, green foreign direct investment, property rights, or the use of green bond proceeds – especially in less transparent markets. Many investors are interested in moving their capital into sustainable projects and companies, but need to identify reliable products that deliver real impact,” she adds. The proposed solution will in a first stage consist in the building of an application and a demonstration of the green finance-related opportunities surrounding blockchain technology at the at the Annual Meeting of the IMF.
This first-stage development will be supported by a €10,000 grant obtained earlier this month from the Climate-KIC, the EU’s main climate innovation initiative. Stockholm Green Digital Finance is still fundraising for the full application build. According to the press release, “the result will be a fully open-source green cryptocurrency application for institutional investors and other capital market actors to ramp up green investments”.
The goal of Stockholm Green Digital Finance is to demonstrate and raise awareness around how green fintech solutions can help advance the transition to sustainable societies. It is an independent platform, set up in collaboration with Stockholm Fintech Hub, aiming to collaborate with both established and new players in the finance sector, locally as well as internationally, to help scale green finance and innovation globally. “Stockholm Green Digital Finance is an essential part of Stockholm Fintech Hub and this EU climate action grant is further validation of its role in the fintech ecosystem. I am thrilled to see the initiative take off and look forward to charting its progress as Cecilia attracts additional funding for the full application build. Only then will investors be able to monitor and verify green investments and – most importantly – the impact they have on their recipients,” says Matthew Argent, CEO & Founder, Stockholm Fintech Hub.
Picture (c) – patpitchaya—shutter stock
