DPM Heng seeks joint effort from academia, industry to boost sustainable finance

The government will invest $35m to upskill and reskill finance professionals.

DPM Heng Swee Keat said that Singapore’s academics and industry should work with the government to advance sustainable finance.

DPM Heng said that the first area is to develop better definitions and outcome measures of sustainable finance, to reduce the risks of greenwashing, and help guide companies and investors in decision-making.

“For example, the conference paper by Ayako Yasuda and Keer Yang from UC Davis suggests that clearer labelling of sustainable finance products helps investors make better investment decisions,” Heng said.

Second, contributions from academia and the industry will assist the government in crafting regulations that attract sustainable finance flows while maintaining low costs for companies.

Singapore has witnessed a rise in disclosure regulations across jurisdictions, with some countries planning to gradually adopt the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards. These standards will apply to listed companies in Singapore from FY2025 and large non-listed companies from FY2027.

‘Good regulations can also catalyse the flow of financing to impactful causes such as energy infrastructure, and deep tech innovations to accelerate decarbonisation,” Heng said.

Lastly, Singapore’s finance professionals must uplift their skills and broaden its talent base.

To support this, Singapore will invest $35m over the next three years to upskill and reskill finance professionals by expanding sustainable finance training courses for working professionals, undergraduate and polytechnic students.

“I encourage all of us here to develop new teaching modalities to make sustainable finance more accessible. For example, SGFC leveraged SMU’s teaching infrastructure to deliver executive courses, and provide a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that is open to the public,” Heng said.