The well attended conference was opened by Prof. François Degeorge, Managing Director of SFI, alongside Sabine Döbeli, CEO of SSF, each welcoming the well over 200 on-site attendees and the more than 100 participants in the live stream. SFI Prof. Alexander F. Wagner, Professor of Finance at the University of Zurich, then kicked off the thematic session "Governance and Regulation" by sharing insights from the new SFI Public Discussion Note. Based on a short, live poll consisting of two questions—"What will the next major crisis be?" and "How will ESG investments fare in that crisis?"—attendees were encouraged to actively participate and share their views. There was broad disagreement around the first question: around 17% of attendees said "Extreme weather", another 17%  "A war involving a nuclear power", followed by "a cyberattack" (15%), "debt" (13%), and so on. The poll results illustrate how difficult it is to identify the next likely crisis. The audience's position on the second question was much clearer: 60% of participants expected ESG investments to do "better" or "much better" than the market in the next crisis, only 12% expecting them to do "worse" or "much worse". Contrasting this majority expectation, in his presentation Prof. Wagner showed that sustainable investments do not always lead to investment success in times of crisis. Using market reactions to the war between Russia and Ukraine as an example, he illustrated how firms labeled sustainable are not necessarily more resilient to crises. Prof. Wagner also showed how stock price reactions to the Russia–Ukraine war have sent us a warning signal regarding climate policy. While in Europe market participants appear to expect a speed-up in climate policy, in the US they appear to expect a slowdown. This presents a major challenge: as climate change is a global problem, global policy coordination is desirable, but the market does not anticipate this happening. Prof. Wagner concluded by noting that sustainable finance is facing its first true test, but that the basic function of finance—namely, ensuring the efficient allocation of resources—is even more important in the current challenging economic climate than it was in the past. 

The remainder of the half-day conference saw other renowned figures speak on various aspects of sustainable investing and sustainable financing, among them Alexandra Lau, Member of the Management Board, Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank (Regulation and the Customer―A Bank's Reality Check), Dr. Stefan Seiler, SFI Chairman and Group Head Human Resources, UBS AG (Sustainability in Talent Management), SFI Professor Laurent Frésard, Professor of Finance at the Università della Svizzera italiana (Should Finance Really Be Sustainable?), Jaffer Machano, United Nations Capital Development Fund (Leveraging Catalytic Capital for Sustainable Investing and Development), Dr. Mirjam Bisang-Staub, Country Head of BlackRock Switzerland and Senior Advisor to BlackRock Sustainable Investing (Navigating the Net Zero Transition from an Investor's Perspective), Dr. Julia Meyer, Senior Lecturer and Researcher, ZHAW and UZH (Sustainable Lending—Where Do We Stand?), Oliver Buschan, Head of Retail Banking & Capital Markets and Member of the Executive Board at the Swiss Bankers Association (Energy Efficiency and Mortgage Lending), and Oliver Führes, Head of Institutional Clients, Zürcher Kantonalbank (How We Can Contribute to Positive Change). The conference, moderated by Hannah Wise, closed with a lively panel discussion with Urs Baumann, CEO of Zürcher Kantonalbank, Jos Dijsselhof, CEO of SIX, and Patrick Odier, Senior Managing Partner, Lombard Odier Group. Discussion continued at the subsequent aperitif.   

The detailed SFI Public Discussion Note "How Finance Enables Positive Change", by SFI Professor Alexander F. Wagner, can be found here.