The United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative launched new guidance for derivatives exchanges prepared in collaboration with the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), the global industry group for exchanges. The joint report provides guidance on "How Derivatives Exchanges can Promote Sustainable Development - An Action Menu".
The SSE Derivatives Exchanges Advisory Group involved more than 70 members and was chaired by CME, the largest derivatives exchange in the world. The advisory group built on initial work from the WFE on this topic and responded to the demand from a number of derivatives exchanges for guidance on this topic. More info here.
For the official launch on the 5th May 2021, we offered two event options to accommodate the many time zones of our network, at either 09:00 or 16:00 Geneva Time (Central European Time).
The resulting report fills an existing gap in the literature by identifying ways in which derivatives exchanges can play in supporting the sustainability transition. In addition to exploring existing sustainability-related derivatives products and initiatives that exchanges offer, the report also provides an Action Menu that provides practical suggestions on how to make the derivatives ecosystem and derivatives exchanges’ operations more sustainable. Know more in the launch webinar.
- Webinar Summary and Presentation
Summary
Opening remarks by James Zhan, UNCTAD, and Nandini Sukumar, WFE reinforced the importance of the derivative exchange in advancing sustainable finance. From the products they trade to their role within the broader derivatives market ecosystem, exchanges have the opportunity to contribute positively to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CME Group, the Advisory Group Chair, represented by Julie Winkler and Owain Johnson, spoke about how the new report reviews the current approaches of derivatives exchanges in sustainability and suggests areas of further work and reflection.
Siobhan Cleary, UN SSE initiative Senior Specialist, discussed the key issues and the draft process. While the role of stock exchanges and equity markets has been well-explored over the past decade, the potential role of derivatives and derivatives markets is less understood. The new SSE and WFE report provides an overview of the role of derivatives markets generally, presents some of the things derivatives exchanges are already doing in relation to sustainability, and highlights ways in which these exchanges can support the transition to more sustainable development pathways.
On both calls, speakers provided insights into what has been done in their markets and they praised the action menu of opportunities in “How derivative exchanges can promote sustainable development”. Some of the participants that contributed to the discussions came from Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV), Borsa Istanbul, CBOE, Euronext, HKEX, ICE and LME.
- Participants
We had 188 participants from different parts of the world and the majority of participants were female.
