Ten years after Paris - Trust is the strategic asset that will drive the transition

Ten years after the Paris Agreement, we are entering a new era where yesterday’s certainties are gradually fading. The peace dividends that long supported economic and financial stability now seem behind us: geopolitical tensions, physical risks, social fractures, technological upheavals. In this context, one truth stands out: sustainable development no longer rests solely on responsibility and the integration of extra-financial factors, but above all on trust. Trust is essential: it opens access to markets, determines the cost of capital, enables regulatory frameworks to be accepted and, above all, underpins the legitimacy of economic action. We are no longer in a model where value creation precedes responsibility: trust has become a strategic, measurable asset that fosters resilience, stability and sustainability.

Yet, if we listen to the background noise called “the market”, the verdict seems clear: sustainable finance is behind us, swept away by what some call the “backlash”. The pushback would be brutal: rejection of environmental and social “constraints”, a correction deemed healthy by those who believe good intentions have failed. The call is to free finance so it can return to what it does best: generating immediate profit. Business as usual would thus be back, with new totems: technology and artificial intelligence (AI), tinged with renewables and climate on one side, and the defense industry on the other, in an era where sovereignty concerns resurface. 

It is true that several symbols are wavering: the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) on life support, similar alliances fracturing like the Net Zero Banking Alliance; European directives under review (CSRD^[1], CS3D^[2]); the taxonomy^[3] in constant revision. As for the Paris Agreement, its goals seem out of reach and some already relegate it to the museum of good intentions—associated with the “naïve” world of multilateralism, good feelings and Excel spreadsheets—brandishing it as proof of a cycle that has ended. Many elements could indeed suggest that green finance is dead. Some mourn in silence. Others, those who never embraced it, or who engaged without conviction, breathe a sigh of relief.

But that would be a misdiagnosis. On the contrary, if we objectively observe the past decade, sustainable finance has not disappeared: it has changed the rules of the game. It is no longer the promise of immediate returns that attracts capital and drives innovation, but the ability to create a climate of trust through transparency, responsibility and real impact. Economic players who understand this are the ones innovating, attracting investment and weathering crises. In reality, the success of sustainable finance is nothing short of spectacular and, ten years after the dreams of those wandering the COP21 corridors in Villepinte, waiting for Laurent Fabius’s little green hammer to seal the Paris Agreement, the story continues. 

I invite you on a retrospective journey to understand how trust has become the foundation of sustainable finance—and why it will be the key to competitiveness and prosperity in the decade ahead.

[1] The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) empowers the European Commission to adopt delegated acts and implementing acts to specify how competent authorities and market participants must comply with the obligations set out in the directive. More information here.
[2] The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) aims to promote sustainable and responsible business conduct in companies’ operations and throughout their global value chains. More information here.
[3] The EU Green Taxonomy is a classification system for economic activities that identifies those that are environmentally sustainable—that is, activities that do not worsen climate change. More information here.