Work

Mobilising capital for long-term prosperity and resilience

Our work

CSF is focused on finance that unlocks New Zealand’s potential and enables the growth, innovation and capital required for current and future generations to thrive.

The New Zealand Government has an ambitious economic growth agenda. These aspirations are set in the context of unprecedented change – including a rapidly warming climate, ageing populations, increased geopolitical and trade tensions, and technology change. The speed and scale of these changes have the potential to destabilise economies, strain public resources, disrupt labour markets, and increase vulnerability to global conflicts.

Aotearoa New Zealand is also in a competition for capital globally.

CSF’s work is focused on removing barriers and enabling flows of finance to respond to these goals and challenges.

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to maintain our access to international markets
Seize new growth and productivity opportunities
Responsibly mange our natural resources
Build a resilient economy that can adapt to future shocks

Our work

Catalyse collaborative solutions

CSF catalyses cross-sector projects to identify and scale innovative financing solutions.

Drive enabling policy

CSF collaborates with government and financial market participants to develop policy and standards which will support growth and resilience.

Deliver industry guidance and learning

CSF connects partners and the wider financial sector with leading thinking, international developments and guidance.

Monitor and communicate progress

CSF tracks progress toward the Sustainable Finance Forum’s 2030 Roadmap For Action.

Strategic priorities

Our work is based on the Sustainable Finance Forum’s 2030 Roadmap for an equitable, inclusive, sustainable financial system, and is focused on financing transformation, transforming finance and changing mindsets.

Investing in private assets

The Centre is working with financial market participants and policy makers to remove barriers to increased investment into private and illiquid assets from managed funds, including KiwiSaver. This will help New Zealanders benefit from investment options that can provide potentially higher financial returns and may also bring long-term positive environmental, social, and economic outcomes.

Our workstreams

New Zealand’s sustainable finance strategy

New Zealand needs clear and cohesive government policies and regulation to effectively attract, mobilise and direct both public and private capital.

Responding to a request from the Minister for Climate Change, CSF has put forward recommendations on aspects of a sustainable finance strategy for New Zealand. These were developed through engagement across the public, iwi, and private sectors.

The vision of the strategy is ‘finance that unlocks New Zealand’s potential and enables the growth, innovation and capital required for current and future generations to thrive’.

The strategy is currently under consideration by Ministers. Sign up for updates below.

Clean energy finance

New Zealand has national objectives of doubling renewable energy and securing affordable, abundant clean energy for New Zealanders. This can be achieved by scaling up the use of existing commercially available technology. The challenge is how to diffuse these solutions at scale and pace.

CSF is working with partners to accelerate private finance towards these national objectives by identifying financing opportunities, supporting product innovation, market uptake and knowledge exchange.

Developing a sustainable finance taxonomy

CSF, in partnership with the NZ Government, is developing a sustainable finance taxonomy, starting with the priority sectors of agriculture and forestry. A sustainable finance taxonomy is a standardised framework for classifying economic activities according to their environmental performance. This classification system provides investors with the confidence to identify and invest in green and transition activities. Developing a robust taxonomy framework, aligned with those already place in our trading partner’s economies, will help to attract more international capital into Aotearoa New Zealand.

Institutional investing in private assets

CSF has developed industry-led recommendations and commissioned a legal opinion to understand and address impediments to investment into private and illiquid assets by managed funds, including KiwiSaver. This work informed the recent Capital Markets review led by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Addressing impediments to investing in private assets will enable New Zealanders to benefit from investment options that can provide potentially higher financial returns and may also bring long-term positive environmental, social, and economic outcomes.

Simplified reporting for SMEs

CSF worked with major financial institutions to develop the ‘Starter for Ten: 10 topics for SMEs to start sustainability reporting’ a tool for SMEs to begin measuring and reporting on sustainability-related matters, reducing risk, increasing resilience and making more informed business decisions.

The Starter for Ten is also a resource for banks and investors to support small business customers with sustainability reporting and a starting point for conversations about sustainable finance.

The New Zealand Sustainable Finance Reference Group

The Centre is working to establish a private sector sustainable finance reference group to provide advice to and support the Minister for Climate change on priority actions and delivery related to sustainable finance. The Centre’s related work includes a review of the sustainable finance landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand to develop a long list of options for the reference group to then recommend 3-5 options for the Government to focus on over the next couple of years. The reference group would subsequently focus on ensuring the partnership between the Government and the Centre focuses on the right areas to achieve our overarching aim of getting more private capital to flow to sustainable opportunities.