SSE Academy

Education & Training

UN member States agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be accomplished by 2030. The following targets are directly addressed by this topic: 

Target 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

Target 17.16:Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries

About the Academy

The SSE Academy is the UN SSE’s education arm focused on the provision of award-winning, globally consistent and pragmatic training for market participants on the adoption and implementation of sustainable finance practices. Together with its education partners, the SSE Academy develops certified training programs made available to capital market participants free of charge with the objective of supporting the education and training needs of stock exchanges. By partnering with topic experts and specialists, the SSE Academy’s mission is to support stock exchanges in their efforts to bring their markets up-to-date with pragmatic educational resources on key sustainability-related issues. Every SSE Academy’s training programs can be found on the SSE Academy events page.

“The UN SSE initiative continues to deliver one of the largest global education programmes on climate risk disclosures, convening organisations and stock exchanges to build knowledge in both established and emerging markets.”

– Judges, Finance for the Future Awards 2023 

Participants trained

Leveraging exchange networks

Stock exchanges have an important convening power connecting entire capital market ecosystems. Exchanges have their finger on the pulse of local market knowledge and capacity-building demands, but do not always have the resources or expertise to facilitate training on topics that are quickly evolving. To support stock exchange’s education and training on sustainability-related efforts, the SSE Academy provides the expertise and training facilitation for exchanges who wish to host training for their market participants. By supporting their education and training activities, the SSE looks to overcome critical barriers exchanges face and increase the number of exchanges providing sustainability-related training for their markets. The SSE Academy’s activities provide education and training that are:

  1. High quality, providing global markets with access to top experts on key sustainability topics
  2. Global, partnering with the SSE’s worldwide network of exchanges to rapidly disseminate internationally consistent knowledge
  3. Customized, locally adapted education to fit wit the unique regulatory and business context of each market
  4. Interactive, addressing the unique questions of participants to overcome barriers to advancement
  5. Accessible, disseminated as a public service, at no cost to the participant

The SSE is continually working with its stock exchange members to identify new topics for training modules. The training currently or previously offerred through the SSE Academy can be found below. All the SSE Academy’s training is provided free of cost to both stock exchange members and to participants of the training. Funding for training is provided through donors.

The SSE depends on donor funding and voluntary contributions to ensure that it’s members can have access to high quality, expert-led training on important sustainability-related topics. If your organization would like to discuss funding or partnership opportunities with the SSE, please get in touch through the contact details at the bottom of the webpage. 

Training Programs

Gender Equality: addressing complexities in capital markets

Learning time: 4 hours live training (over two sessions)

Partners: IFC, UN Women, and guest speakers from Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Bloomberg, and Gap Square

Status: Ongoing

Click here for more details

ISSB: Applying the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards

Learning time: 3.5 hours live training + homework exercise

Partners: IFC, IFRS Foundation

Status: Ongoing

Click here for more details

GRI: introductory and advanced training on impact reporting with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

Learning time: 4 hours live training (over two sessions)

Partners: GRI

Status: Ongoing

Click here for more details

TCFD for banks: from climate risks to opportunities

Learning time: 4 hours live training (over two sessions)

Partners: IFC, UNEP-FI, CDP

Status: Ongoing

TCFD: getting started and building experience on climate-related financial disclosures

Learning time: 4 hours live training (over two sessions)

Partners: IFC, CDP

Status: Completed

Additional educational tools

Miss a training? Check out our YouTube Chanel for recordings

Visit our YouTube channel to view some of our recorded training sessions.

SSE YouTube Channel

Publications and guidance documents

Don’t miss our publications and guidance documents to further support your market’s capacity building requirements. 

SSE Publications

SSE Toolkit

The SSE is working with its partners to provide stock exchanges with toolkits on key topics so that they can help guide their market’s learning journeys. These toolkits include training tools that participants of our training programs can use, that help explain key concepts. 

SSE Toolkit on ISSB

Contact us

The SSE Academy develops training materials that aim to support exchanges educational and training activities on sustainability-related markets. For more information or to inquire about training for your market, exchanges are encouraged to contact the SSE Academy team directly. If you are not an SSE Partner Exchange, please feel free to fill in the contact form to request training, which we will take into consideration. Click here to access the contact form to request training.

Testimonials

The TCFD Training Workshop organized by SSE and FEAS was really impressive. The course was professionally designed and very interactive with supporting questionnaires and polls. The speakers run the course very lively. I would definitely recommend this course, and not only to stock exchanges.

Dr Konstantin Saroyan, Secretary General, FEAS

The Sydney Stock Exchange was proud to have collaborated with UN SSE, IFC and CDSB, to provide training on climate-related reporting and the subject in general. The courses were professionally run with quality content and impressive facilitators. I would welcome more of these courses to be presented in the future.

Michael Go, CEO, Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX)

The Training on Climate Disclosure (TCFD training workshop) delivered by the UN SSE to the stakeholders of Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), were really excellent and the trainers were outstanding. Our participants have learned a lot on this new topic and they will benefit immensely. We hope to get more such training through the UN SSE to contribute more towards Sustainable Development in our Capital Market. We wish all the best to the UN SSE and its superbly excellent Team Members.

Md Ghulam Faruqe, Managing Director, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE)

The Prague Stock Exchange appreciated the opportunity to join the TCFD training program and provide our issuers with very complex and practical courses provided by experienced experts. Our issuers have particularly appreciated the practical focus and specific use cases that the course offers and I hope there will be more opportunities to cooperate with UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative in the future.

Petr Koblic (CEO) – Prague Stock Exchange

 Given the high-quality inputs and insights into the TCFD framework offered by the excellent trainers, the training was very well received by the participants. We therefore warmly recommend the training to other exchanges. As we are committed to supporting listed companies in sustainability reporting and to increasing transparency around ESG factors in capital markets, we are pleased that we can continue the fruitful collaboration with UN SSE and offer a GRI training program this year to our listed companies in collaboration with GRI and CDP.

Christian Reuss, Head SIX Swiss Exchange

The training provided clear, comprehensive, high-quality information on the financial risks & opportunities associated with climate change, a deep dive on the TCFD recommended disclosures and steps organizations need to take to implement the recommendations, including good practice and case studies.

Geoffrey Odundo, Chief Executive Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)

On behalf of the SME Finance Forum, I wanted to express my thanks and appreciation for your supports and collaboration in organizing such a successful training for members of the SME Finance Forum. The course was very informative and insightful, and was very well received by the participants. Their comments and feedbacks have been very positive. I am confident that the training will improve not only their knowledge and understanding of the climate related risks on their operations but also help them disclose climate risks properly and accurately. The training topic, while still relatively new and emerging, is highly relevant to our members, especially financial institutions from around the world. We hope to have the opportunity to collaborate and work together again in the future.

Hourn Thy – SME Finance Forum Operations Officer

SSE Academy Partners

Training partners

The SSE Academy works with experts from its partner organizations to develop and facilitate educational materials and training

Donor Support

This training program has been made possible through the financial contributions made by SSE Official Supporters and through major project donors. If your organization is interested in funding a training program with the UN SSE initiative to activate the SSE Academy’s global network, contact info@sseinitiative.org 

Major Project Supporters

Mission Supporters

Become an Official Supporter of the SSE

If your organisation would like to become an SSE Official Supporter, please reach out directly to the SSE team: info@SSEinitiative.org

If you would like to become a Major Projects Supporter, the SSE team will set up a call with you to discuss project details and funding opportunities. It is common to fund an existing project that has no resource allocation yet, but it is also possible to discuss new areas of collaboration. 


If you would like to join our group of Mission Supporters, we will send you a personalised invoice for 10,000 USD. As soon as we have received the funds, we will add your logo to our list of Official Supporters and share with you your Official SSE Supporter logo.

We will also ask for a quote from your organisation to use on our Official Supporters website to showcase your participation in the Official Supporters programme. If you are already a UN SSE member, we will link your logo to your factsheet, so that your exchange’s page gets more visibility. If you are a non-exchange stakeholder, we will ask you to fill in a short questionnaire, so that we can introduce your organisation or company to our network and show what role you play in supporting sustainable finance. 

Benefits of supporting the SSE

The SSE is the largest network to communicate exchanges’ sustainability activities in various ways, including:

  • Direct communication with policymakers: As an initiative launched by the UN Secretary-General, the SSE regularly convenes policymakers from securities regulators to ministers of finance to communicate the challenges and successes of exchanges in promoting sustainable finance.
  • UN flagship reports: Trends and updates on stock exchange sustainability efforts are featured annually in the United Nations World Investment Report.
  • SSE Academy: The SSE provides market education programmes at no cost to exchanges to assist them in their efforts to keep market participants up to date on the latest standards and trends in ESG disclosure and sustainable finance. 
  • Online database: The SSE maintains the largest online database of stock exchange ESG activities. This is the most visited page on the SSE website and widely used as the authoritative source for exchange activities on sustainable finance.
  • SSE events: The SSE organises its flagship event which happens every two years, the SSE Global Dialogue, as well as other national or regional events. We also work with stock exchanges to assist them in the development of their own events and workshops and we organise sessions at other global forums such as the UN Climate Conferences (COPs).Social media: SSE tweets have received over 1 million impressions and our Linkedin page has over 3,300 followers.
  • Newsletter: Approximately 3,000 subscribers receive a monthly highlights newsletter covering stock exchange and securities regulator sustainability activities
  • “Exchange in Focus”: Articles published on the SSE website highlight your exchange’s or organisation’s leadership and enable exchanges to illustrate their sustainability action on the ground.

In addition to enabling the SSE to strengthen and broaden its activities in providing technical assistance, research, and consensus-building activities for its members, SSE Mission and Major Project Supporters also receive a number of unique benefits:

  • Official recognition of your status as an SSE Official Supporter on the SSE website. 
  • Major Projects Supporters who are funding a database, publication or event, will have their logo and or name appear on the relevant page and or product.
  • Official Supporters will be recognized through a number of the SSE’s media platforms including social media and in its monthly newsletter. In addition, your logo will be shown at the end of every SSE Quarterly Webinar
  • Members of the Official Supporters program will have the first opportunity to reserve a seat at an SSE event and will be offered speaking opportunities at most SSE events and other activities. This includes the Global Dialogue and the UN Climate Conference. We will also invite your CEO to be interviewed for SSE TV (in-person at our studio on the NYSE trading floor or virtually). 
  • A yearly impact report will be shared with all SSE’s Official Supporters combined with an annual consultation call to share SSE work plans, results and impacts. 

Need help getting started?

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