Sustainable Finance Live 2026 kicked off in London with an opening speech from founder of ResponsibleRisk and Finextra contributing editor, Richard Peers.
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Peers highlighted that the focus of this year’s conference is investing in thriving communities, a subject that has not been prioritised within banking in the past.
He outlined the key themes of the event, describing them as “five stuck systems with one shared unlock”:
- Underfunded and disconnected communities that can become primary change agents for themselves;
- Underbanked local initiatives that can be scaled;
- Why big banks view clubs, charities, and sports teams as high risk and low value;
- Banking is not seen as serving local good in society and how that can change; and
- How governments can empower local communities and enact trusted sustainable policies.
Peers ended on a key question to the audience: can communities shape and fund their own future?
The opening session ‘Mobilising Communities Towards Nature Recovery’ was presented by keynote speaker Debbie Tann, CEO of Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.
“In my lifetime, we have lost 70% of our nature. When I say lost, I mean, destroyed,” Tann stated. She highlighted that there is no resilient economy without resilient nature, pointing out that more than 50% of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature, and there is a $2.7 trillion potential annual GDP loss from collapse of key ecosystem services by 2030. Tann stressed that this has been treated as an environmental problem for decades, when it is poses a worldwide economic and financial risk.
“Nature is key infrastructure,” Tann said. Rivers, soils, mountains, and woodlands are just as vital as concrete and steel. “Investment in nature recovery isn’t about wildlife, it’s about resilience.”
Nature restoration does more than revitalise struggling wildlife, it builds flood resilience, it cleans air, restores soil, improves health and wellbeing, supports new jobs and enterprises, and boosts the economy, Tann explained.
“It’s not whether we can afford to restore nature, but whether we can afford not to.”
Tann emphasised that nature cannot be restored by finance alone — people must be mobilised and communities need to be co-creators, not simply beneficiaries of their finances and their growth.
“Ultimately, [communities] need the power and the resources to become stewards of the places in which their prosperity and wellbeing depend. That means bringing things together which historically, have been kept very separate: nature, community, economics.”
She highlighted that these key values are all treated in different silos, and thus presented as either/or choices, which is not the case. The question is how sustainable finance can invest in places so that these nature, community, and economics reinforce one another rather than compete.
Tann outlined nature-based solutions her trust is working on. One significant project is the River Trent restoration, which estimates that a £43 million annual investment could lead to £10 billion in benefits over 30 years, including cleaner water, flood resilience, green jobs, healthier living, and recovering wildlife. This depends on bringing together people from different industries to collaborate – local farmers, communities, businesses, governments.
Tann envisioned a future ecosystem in which nature, community, and economy are working as one interconnected system, where clean energy, nature restoration, affordable homes, sustainable food, are generated locally and driven back into local communities.
To achieve this, Tann noted that we need think beyond mobilising money for profit, and to invest in broader returns such as nature resilience, cleaner water, green living — multiple forms of value over longer term horizons.
“Resilience doesn’t just come from finance. It comes form healthy natural systems, thriving communities, and economies that understand their dependence is on both of those things,” Tann said.
She concluded: “If the twentieth century was about financing growth, perhaps the twenty-first century needs to be about financing resilience.”