Global finance leaders commit to unlocking $30+ billion of capital through green and sustainability sukuk by 2025

The Islamic Finance Council UK (UKIFC), Her Majesty’s Treasury, Ministry of Finance in the Republic of Indonesia Ministry, Islamic Development Bank, London Stock Exchange Group and the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) have come together today as founding partners to launch a High Level Working Group on Green Sukuk (HLWG). The 3-year initiative will direct investment  to reduce  greenhouse gas emissions in  the world’s regions in most need. 

The announcement follows work of the Global Islamic Finance and UN SDGs Taskforce and a recent report “Innovation in Islamic Finance: Green Sukuk for SDGs” commissioned by UNDP Indonesia in which the UKIFC estimated that an additional US$30+ billion of capital towards the SDGs can be raised by 2025 through green and sustainability sukuk. To unlock this finance the HLWG has been launched to coordinate international efforts. The report showed how  green and sustainability sukuk can be a viable financial instrument attracting billions of dollars of capital for green projects that support the delivery  of the Paris Agreement.

Islamic finance is not limited to Muslim countries and has the potential to support the delivery of the more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions that will be agreed at COP26. This will be particularly attractive to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) whose 57 member states represent over 1.82 billion people (24% of the total world population) and include a number of low-income countries that are politically or culturally marginalised.

The HWLG will be a focused, high-profile group of global stakeholders that will be led by the founding partners. The UKIFC together with Global Ethical Finance Initiative will act as Secretariat. The HLWG will focus on the following objectives:

Ensuring green and sustainability sukuk is highlighted at annual COP summits up to and including 2023 to increase awareness of the instrument and proactively encourage the issuance of such sukuk by all market stakeholders (corporates, multilaterals and sovereigns) as a key Islamic financing key tool
 
Assist and enhance existing established global standard setting bodies and regulatory initiatives run by the UN, IsDB and others (e.g. PRI, NGFS, Transform, PRB) to encourage better alignment of the Islamic finance industry with the global green and sustainability financial movement. 

Identify and address specific existing challenges for green and sustainability sukuk on the supply and demand side. 

The HLWG launch was made today during the UKIFC’s Islamic Finance COP26 Programme that was held on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland. GEFI’s Path to COP26 campaign enabled Islamic finance experts from across the globe to come together to demonstrate the important role Islamic finance can play in supporting climate action in the global south and beyond.