“It will be fun, but also involve considerable responsibility and a lot of work. It is valuable to be around when the rules are being drawn up.
Karl-Oskar Olming was appointed in 2020 to the European Commission’s advisory expert group Platform on Sustainable Finance. The group has worked on further developing the EU Taxonomy and the EU framework for sustainable finance.
Ahead of 2023, the platform has been reconvened and reduced to 28 members who have been appointed following a public call for applications. In addition there are seven directly appointed representatives of EU agencies and bodies as well as 14 observers from EU institutions, international organisations and the private sector.
The 28 members include independent experts, representatives from civil society as well as organisations including SEB through Karl-Oskar Olming. SEB and Crédit Agricole are the participating banks. The European Banking Federation is represented on the platform this time by ING.
Improve usability
The focus for the expert group’s work is on improving usability for the entire framework for sustainable finance.
“The current rules do not make inoperability easy. Definitions and implementation timescales differ which makes it more difficult for an institution to understand what needs to be done,” says Karl-Oskar Olming.
Other workflows include updating the taxonomy criteria and building a model for monitoring and reporting how capital flows into sustainable investments are developed within the EU. It is about a form of feedback mechanism to see if the rules are working.
As well as the opportunity to influence, participation in the expert group means that SEB gains a unique insight into what is happening with the development of the EU framework for sustainable finance.
Many customers are interested in what is happening in this area. We can offer something unique here through our holistic view, which makes us an important partner from an advisory perspective,” says Karl-Oskar Olming.