Financial and economic issues underlie virtually every sustainable development decision that must be made over the coming years. The Future Earth Finance and Economics Knowledge-Action Network will focus on improving the understanding of sustainability through the lens of business, economic, and financial systems, and their inter-dependencies.
The aim of this urgent work is to inspire the emergence of sustainable development pathways that link economic prosperity with social justice and a healthy biosphere. There is growing interest from policy makers, financial practitioners, civil society, and researchers in systemic interventions that can help mobilize capital for the transition to sustainability.
Work done by the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and UN Environment Program (UNEP) Financial Inquiry lays the groundwork for this process.
The Future Earth Finance and Economics Knowledge-Action Network will bring broad communities of researchers, practitioners and end-users together to explore ways to align global financial and economic systems, business models, consumption, and production patterns towards sustainability both conceptually and in practice.
This Knowledge-Action Network considers the financial and economic system as part of a larger complex socio-ecological system and its goal is to stimulate collaborative design processes that lead to new research proposals, engagement activities, and the emergence of research-based solutions. This will be done by mapping and scoping processes together using the Future Earth Open Network as well as convening leading thinkers and the growing community of innovators in the area of sustainable finance, business models, and economic systems.