building bridges.

Building Bridges Geneva aims to tackle the world’s most significant challenges – from climate change to social inequality – by accelerating the flow of private sector sustainable investment and driving effective policymaking. Building a sustainable economy will be key, but the global system changes we need are so significant, and the actions required to deliver them so complex, that it cannot be achieved by any single actor or sector. Government authorities, international foundations, academics, businesses and financial institutions all have a central role to play.
 

shepherding the transition.

By ‘building bridges’ between stakeholders and sectors, Building Bridges Geneva brings together a coalition from across the public and private spheres to facilitate the shift to a global economic model that can fulfil the needs of a sustainable, just society, as outlined in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. 

Although the Building Bridges Geneva summit is the initiative’s centrepiece, the project is far more than just an event. Building Bridges is a year-round force for good; a committed movement of people and organisations working to identify opportunities to promote sustainable finance, and to advocate for policies that will facilitate the shift to a net-zero, nature-positive, socially constructive, digitally enabled economic model – one that can sustainably and fairly meet the needs of every person on the planet, wherever they happen to live. 

Switzerland, which hosts both a global hub for international collaboration and one of the world’s leading financial centres, is an ideal place for Building Bridges to call home. By basing itself in Geneva, Building Bridges is positioned to engage with a wide range of stakeholders from the world of finance, the energy industry, the United Nations, international organisations, NGOs, academia and policymakers. In building bridges between these diverse groups, the project aims to channel their talents toward a common goal: the development and application of sustainable finance to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Hubert Keller, Senior Managing Partner at Lombard Odier

The Building Bridges summit was established to maximise the collective impact of the coalition’s ‘Bridge Builders’ and bring together key stakeholders for a discussion on how to accelerate global system changes in a way that drives forward the sustainability transition while both reducing risks and creating investment opportunities for the private sector. 

The first Building Bridges Geneva summit, held in 2019, was symbolically located on a bridge between International Geneva and Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, the city’s financial hub. As such, the summit was ideally located for a coming together of representatives from both sectors for a conversation on how to create lasting and meaningful change.