Courtney Thompson, vice president of global sustainable finance at Morgan Stanley says sustainability finance has taken off in recent years.

"I think it's mainstream and I think the sources of data that are enabling smarter decisions around this are also bringing the conversation around sustainability to the forefront for many, many investors," says Thompson.

HSBC's Paul Stanley, senior manager of corporate sustainability, joined Heather Clancy and Sarah Golden, Sidebar cohosts during GreenBiz 20, to discuss the company's sustainability program. Stanley says HSBC has been involved with its clients' sustainability work for a long time but didn't talk about it publicly until a couple years ago when it announced five commitments.

Just before GreenBiz 20 in February 2020, financial services company EY announced that it would become carbon neutral by the end of the year. Veli Ivanova, Americas climate change and sustainability services leader at EY, joined GreenBiz 20 Sidebar cohosts Heather Clancy and Sarah Golden to discuss the announcement.

Ivanova noted that EY has been doing similar work with client organizations for about a decade and that it was important for the company to do the same. "Our employees are really the driving force behind that commitment," she says.

Marie Morice, head of sustainable finance at the U.N. Global Compact, says that there's strong interests with corporates for the Sustainable Development Goals — often referred to as SDGs — but with many of goals, "we're not there yet."