06.09.2022CCSF co-hosted the 5th Annual GRASFI Conference with the UZH Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP)

The Zurich 2022 Sustainable Finance Alliance Conference was an event that brought together leaders from the finance industry, policymakers, academics, and civil society to discuss the latest developments and innovations in sustainable finance. The conference was held on September 14-15, 2022, in Zurich and organized by the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) and the Center of Competence in Sustainable Finance (CCSF) at the University of Zurich.

The conference aimed to explore sustainable finance and provided a platform for experts to discuss topics related to sustainable finance. Participants engaged in discussions on topics such as ESG metrics and ratings, financial disclosure and reporting, measuring climate-related factors, spatial finance, AI and Big Data, the role of central banks and regulators, sustainable finance and law, and the effects of sustainable finance regulation.

The conference also featured sessions on the impact of sustainable investing on the real economy, (ultra-) high net worth individuals, advisors, intermediaries, behavioural aspects of sustainable investing, investor preferences, (re-)insurance, banking, sustainable investments, and debt markets. The conference offered paper prizes, including the GRASFI Best Paper Award, GRASFI Best Paper Award for Transparency for Stakeholders, GRASFI Best Paper Award for Climate Finance Research, and GRASFI Best Paper Award for Impactful Research.

The winners of the awards are as follows:

• GRASFI Best Paper Award 2022: Julia Bingler, Mathias Kraus, Markus Leippold & Nicolas Webersinke for their paper "Cheap Talk in Corporate Climate Commitments: The Role of Active Institutional Ownership, Signaling, Materiality, and Sentiment Firm sustainability: How do investors drive it ahead, if at all?"
• Best Paper Award for Transparency for Stakeholders: Daniel Schmidt, Marco Ceccarelli, Mikael Homanen & Simon Glossner for their paper "Which institutional investors drive corporate sustainability?"
• Best Paper Award for Climate Finance Research: Quyen Nguyen, Adam Kitto, Ivan Diaz-Rainey, Ben McNeil, Nic Pittman and Renzhu Zhang for their paper "Scope 3 Emissions: Data Quality and Machine Learning Prediction Accuracy"
• Best Paper Award for Impactful Research: Adelina Barbalau and Federica Zeni for their paper "The Optimal Design of Green Securities"
• Best PhD Paper Award: Claudio Rizzi for his paper "Nature as a Defense from Disasters: Natural Capital and Municipal Bond Yields." Glen Gostlow, Bram van der Kroft, and Dennis Bams were runners-up for their respective papers.