Nomindari Enkthur - How sustainable finance is driving change

In this episode Nomindari speaks about how in Mongolia the banking sector has been a driver for change, embarking on a sustainable finance journey which resulted in the adoption of a national sustainable finance strategy and principles across the sector.  She also outlined how the banking sector has inspired other business communities in the country.

Nomindari’s Top Tips: sustainability can be driven from the bottom up with a market based approach, even in a country where the government is not so active on sustainability policies. Change can be driven from the market itself.

"The power that we have as financial and business professionals is just endless, so please use it proactively and ignite change wherever you are." she says.

Nomindari is the CEO of The Mongolian Sustainable Finance Association (MSFA) which was formed by the Mongolian Bankers Association (MBA) in December 2017 with the vision to become a sustainable finance knowledge and leadership centre in the region. The MSFA closely collaborates with various stakeholders to create cross-sector linkages and cohesive action to promote the role of finance in sustainability, climate change resilience and ecological preservation.

She is also a Portfolio Management Consultant – SDG Finance at The Joint SDG Fund which supports countries accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to deliver on the commitment of the 2030Agenda to leave no one behind. The Joint SDG Fund incentivizes countries to draw on cutting edge expertise and innovation from across the United Nations development system and a broad range of partners to strategically invest in SDG acceleration that is tailored to different country contexts.

Transcript

Nomindari Enkthur FINAL

Thu, 4/21 3:23PM • 9:30

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sustainability, mongolia, finance, sustainable, banking sector, business, commitments, sustainable business practices, discussion, country, banks, developing, financial sector, sustainability agenda, implement, working, ceos, initiative, policies, green

00:03

Hello, and welcome to the fin biz 2030 building resilience podcast series. This episode features highlights from the business case for doing good webinar hosted by Carla fortune and Chalene Callahan. This short episode we hear from namang diary NK Thor, CEO of the Mongolian sustainable finance Association. She is introduced here by Carla.

00:31

All right, so our next guest joining us all the way from Mongolia. To give us a global perspective, we have nomon Director, who is the CEO of the Mongolian sustainable finance Association, a portfolio management consultant for the end joint SDG fund, and a fellow One Young World ambassador. She's a truly impressive finance professional driving force behind the sustainability agenda in Mongolia and beyond. I personally can't wait to hear from her name and Dari over to you.

00:59

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and the introduction. It's an really absolute pleasure for me to be here. And I'm really excited to speak about the story of how we Mongolia it's a it's a developing small country of only 3 million people. But we're able to use the banking sector really as a driver for change and sustainability in the country. And I'm hoping to also bring a bit of a developing country perspective in this discussion today. So I think everyone already agreed that if you look at what's happening globally, now, the majority of businesses and policymakers are speaking about sustainability, climate change, sustainable business practices, just looking at a recent kind of survey that said, around 70, to 80% of the global organisations had already made commitments to, for example, reduced the GHG emissions, and another one and a half 1000 companies are currently committed to tcfd and climate disclosure standards, which is definitely a tremendous achievement. And we are seeing similar kind of headlines every day in the news about these kinds of exciting developments towboats or 2030 agenda. However, the real challenge that I believe we're facing right now is to really demonstrate the credibility of these commitments and really making sure that the actual change is happening, and actual money is actually flowing into projects that are more cleaner and more sustainable. And I really must say that, although we're making progress, I think we're still way far behind where we need to be and where our commitments we have made, should be. And one of the reasons I think this is happening is because there are still many countries, and companies that are viewing climate change sustainability, as kind of a side initiative, you know, social responsibility activities, something that's nice to do, you just follow it because the rest of the industry does it. Whereas it should be incorporated really in the cost strategies of any business that has a long term vision. And as a metaphor, we're just celebrating Earth Day, one day a year, whereas everyday should be earthy. And we could really endlessly debate the merits and cost of benefits of sustainability regulations and business practices. But at the end, we just have to understand, it's just probably the most profitable strategy of human history. And sustainable tea should be just our new norm new present and new business as usual. I think it was said it should be the new investment standards. And the kind of the realisation of this really has formed the sustainable finance journey in Mongolia. So in 2013, we had all the CEOs of the of the banks come together when we had the first sustainable finance firm. And we had a long discussion about the various environmental social issues the country is facing. I mean, a lot of people when we talk about Mongolia, we think about the nomadic country with the blue sky. But the reality is that we face a lot of issues like air pollution, which is even worse than Beijing, climate change, health safety, destruction of the land, from the mining sector, and so on. And in a country where the enforcement of environmental regulations is really weak because of the government and often also subject to corruption. The banking sector, the financial sector, in general holds a really powerful position to influence more sustainable business practices. And most of the CEOs when we had this discussion around that they fully agreed that they had to implement sustainability because the banking sector has a really critical role in the economy makes up 95% of the entire financial sector. So it's a quite strong advanced sector and they usually want to take a lead in these initiatives, rather than being told by the government to do you know, to to do something or to implement a policy. But one of the other CEOs like in the room put it in a very different way and said, the question of why we should do sustainable finance should not really be discussed the case today because the answer is very simple. We are just doing To survive, we simply cannot succeed in a world that itself is failing. And the sustainability path is just an enabler for future existence and growth for both financial institutions are also declines in businesses. So it's just basic business sense. And I think Garrett said, it's really just a strategic advantage as well. So after this discussion, and after this event, the whole banking sector made a commitment to develop and implement a set of National Sustainable finance principles that were adopted by the entire banking sector in 2015. And we are very proud that despite the fact that there's still no central bank regulation that mandates banks to do stainable, finance, all of the banks just implement them on a voluntary basis. And they report to us Domingo and sustainable finance Association every six months about

05:49

the sustainability performance. Now, the central bank has also picked us up and they're collecting Greenlaw statistics on the banking sector, and are most of the banks really actively developing and various green finance products in different sectors. And also together as an industry, we're currently working with the government and the Green Climate Fund on the setup of the National Green Bank, that will really provide financing for green projects at a much larger scale and at a more affordable rate. And along the road, we've also realised that of course, banks, even though they make up a larger part of the financial sector, are just part of the solution, but the entire financial system and the business sector needed to be mobilised, including assurance, capital markets, institutional investors, and so on. So in light of that, we also develop the National Sustainable finance strategy in 2017, covering the entire financial sector describing ways of how the market both the market and also the government can drive more positive change in the country. And starting from a few years back, we are now actively implementing various projects, initiatives around building a green bond market, introducing ESG considerations into the stock exchange policies, developing financial regulations and policies such as a green taxonomy that are aligned with our sustainability agenda. And what I found very interesting was also that this work that we have done in the banking sector is now also inspiring other business communities. So the construction sector is coming together, the Kashmir sector is coming together. And also other countries like Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan, were inspired by this Mongolia story. And they're just coming together to develop their own sustainability standards, drive sustainability from the bottom up with a market based approach. So even in a country, where you have a government that is not so active on the sustainability policies, you can see that this is happening with change driving proven from the market itself. And as a person that has really seen firsthand how finance can advance sustainability. First, I just want to thank everyone, the organisers here today and the participants for taking part in this important discussion. And secondly, I just wanted to say that the power that we have, as financial and business professionals is just endless. And so please use it practically and ignite change wherever you are. So I have been dedicated my whole career working on sustainable finance, and all the changes that I'm seeing in the country is really inspiring for me, and I just really hope every young financial professional that is working this field will also support this agenda going forward. So thanks a lot for for this opportunity again, and I'm happy to share more insights during the panel and discussion.

08:51

To hear more podcasts or to find out more about fin biz 2030 Go to fin biz 20 thirty.com. Join the conversation using hashtag fin biz 2030 in base 2030 is a joint initiative between One Young World and Chartered Accountants worldwide. This podcast is produced by Big Top multimedia. The original webinar series was produced by B their productions are big top multimedia, special thanks to pexels.com