(17 July 2017, New York) The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was invited to present the work of the Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative at the UN headquarters at a high-level political forum highlighting UN Partnerships with the private sector.

“The SSE is a partnership between UN entities, and between the UN and the private sector,” said UNCTAD New York Chief Chantal Line Carpentier. “Together, these UN entities have partnered with capital market leaders to harness the influence of stock exchanges worldwide through specific, measurable, impact oriented work streams to support the sustainable development goals.”

Launched in 2009 by former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the SSE was created as a dialogue between stock exchanges, investors, companies, regulators and policy makers. Today the SSE has 64 “Partner Exchanges” around the world, representing more than two thirds of all the world’s stock exchanges and more than 70% of global market capitalization.

UNCTAD works jointly with the UN Global Compact, UN Environment Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI) and the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) to coordinate this initiative, each of which contributes unique expertise and private sector partners to the SSE’s work.

UNCTAD New York Chief Ms. Chantal Line Carpentier

Ms. Carpentier highlighted the SSE’s global campaign to encourage stock exchanges around the world to introduce voluntary guidance on sustainability reporting as an example of the initiatives impact on SDG target 12.6 (Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle).

When the campaign was launched in 2015 less than a third of stock exchanges worldwide were providing voluntary guidance on sustainability reporting. Since launching the campaign, in less than 24 months the SSE has more than doubled the number of exchanges providing this guidance.

In addition to SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) the SSE also works closely on SDGs 5 (gender equality), 8 (decent work and economic growth), 13 (climate action) and 17 (partnerships for the goals).

The UNCTAD presentation on the SSE took place at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) as part of the Partnership Exchange special event to enhance global partnership for sustainable development. This is the second Partnership Exchange event, organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP).

The SSE is today the largest global partnership of stock exchanges committed to supporting sustainable development.