Exchange in Focus: LuxSE named Stock Exchange of the Year by Environmental Finance
30 June 2022
The Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) has been granted the ‘Stock Exchange of the Year’ award by Environmental Finance as part of the Sustainable Investment Awards 2022, with the winners of the different categories officially unveiled earlier today.
The Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards 2022 are global and recognise financial institutions and other companies which strive to incorporate ESG across all asset classes, contribute to making sustainability an integral part of investment decisions and support projects that mitigate climate change or make a positive impact in the world.
“This award is an important recognition of the positive environmental and social impact that the Luxembourg Stock Exchange contributes to by facilitating sustainable investment towards the global goals. Every day, we strive to make sustainable investment more accessible not just to established players in developed markets but also in emerging markets, where the funding is needed the most. This recognition by Environmental Finance further strengthens our conviction that exchanges can and must drive the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive economy,” said Julie Becker, CEO of LuxSE.
Recognising efforts in data, education and transparency
The jury at this year’s Sustainable Investment Awards chose LuxSE, home to the world’s leading platform for sustainable securities the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), as the winner in the ‘Stock Exchange of the Year’ category for its pioneering work in three key areas: expanding the scope of sustainable investment opportunities featured on the platform, bringing structured sustainability data to the market with the LGX DataHub and fostering sustainable finance knowledge and awareness through the LGX Academy.
The Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards, now in its fourth year, considers the efforts and achievements made by contenders in the period from 1 March 2021 to 1 April 2022. A judging panel consisting of over 40 investors and industry experts reviewed and scored the submissions. This year marks the first time LuxSE is awarded at the Sustainable Investment Awards. LuxSE was granted the ‘Exchange of the Year’ award for five consecutive years from 2017 – 2021 in Environmental Finance’s Bond Awards, which is the other major annual award competition organised by the sustainable finance-focused news outlet.
Accelerating sustainable finance
In 2021, LuxSE continued to develop the LGX platform to reflect and foster new market trends, with the overarching objective to accelerate sustainable investment. The LGX fund window was revamped to reflect the Article 8 and Article 9 fund classification under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, providing more transparency to investors around funds’ SFDR classification. To highlight the wider sustainable investment universe beyond labelled bonds and expand sustainable investment opportunities for impact-conscious investors while demand for green bonds exceeds the supply, LuxSE also added a new section featuring Climate-Aligned Issuers, showcasing companies that derive at least 75% of their revenues from environmentally friendly activities.
To address the main hurdles to sustainable finance, LuxSE further developed the LGX DataHub and LGX Academy in 2021. The scope of the LGX DataHub was expanded to include sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) in addition to green, social and sustainability bonds, and now offers structured sustainability data on more than 7,000 of the world’s listed sustainable debt instruments. LuxSE also brought the LGX Academy courses to a number of additional countries, including Rwanda, Cabo Verde and Vietnam as part of the exchange’s focus on sustainable finance capacity building in emerging markets.
As of 31 May 2022, LGX encompasses a total of 2,800 sustainable securities, including 1,400 green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds from 240 issuers in 50 countries, raising a total of EUR 736 billion for green and social investment and sustainable development across the world.
SSE Stock Exchange Database
To learn more about what exchanges are doing to promote ESG disclosure and sustainable finance, visit the SSE’s database of stock exchange sustainability activities. Currently, the database has data on 118 stock exchanges and tracks progress on key activities where exchanges are promoting sustainable business and investment practices. It is the largest data set of its kind and the data is freely accessible.About the SSE
The SSE initiative is a UN Partnership Programme organised by UNCTAD, the UN Global Compact, UNEP FI and the PRI. The SSE’s mission is to provide a global platform for exploring how exchanges, in collaboration with investors, companies (issuers), regulators, policymakers and relevant international organizations, can enhance performance on ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) issues and encourage sustainable investment, including the financing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The SSE seeks to achieve this mission through an integrated programme of conducting evidence-based policy analysis, facilitating a network and forum for multi-stakeholder consensus-building, and providing technical assistance and advisory services.
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