AmCham Kuwait’s Banking and Finance (B&F) focus group together with the Union of Investment Companies (UIC) and with the support of Ernst & Young (EY), hosted and co-delivered a first-of-its-kind certification session on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG).
Attendees included executives from the Banking, Finance, Insurance, and Legal sectors, as well as the U.S. and French Embassies in Kuwait. Key speakers included AmCham Kuwait’s B&F Focus Group Chair and organizer of the session – Mercedes Vazquez, The UIC’s newly appointed Secretary General – Fadwa Darwish, and EY MENA’s Climate Change & Sustainability Services Consultant – Faisal Alabdulmuhsen.
The session was held at the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce premises, and it was a remarkable occasion for AmCham Kuwait’s B&F Focus Group as its first external collaboration with two well-renowned entities since 2019.
During the interactive session, expert speakers spoke on the importance of innovation for sustainable prosperity and economic diversification. Speakers highlighted that fostering inclusion as the social aspect is key, as it enables a responsible future that meets the carbon & net-zero neutrality pledges harnessing the power of sustainable finance. Speakers finalized the session by discussing the pledge to action and frameworks that companies utilize in order to start executing their sustainability plans from within different scopes.
Mercedes Vazquez, AmCham Kuwait’s Banking & Finance Focus Group Chair said “Moving the pledge to action requires mobilization, as we are living in increasingly interconnected industries that require groundbreaking innovation, it’s essential to have active agents of change within key companies of the banking & finance industry. Holding such workshops will help mobilize the ecosystem as a whole; contributing to Kuwait’s Vision of 2035 to invest in human capital to create job opportunities and diversify the GDP and Kuwait’s carbon neutrality pledge by 2060.”