IDB Invest work with a large number of Financial Institutions across the Latin American and Caribbean region and realised that there was a lack of awareness and capability to drive sustainable finance across the sector.

As a regional development finance institution, they were questioning how they could innovate and use their reach and resources to have a greater impact across the finance system.

They had a vision to create a network of pioneering sustainable finance leaders who would be equipped and able to lead the development of new business strategies and organisational change.

Their challenge was how to create a transformational learning experience that would both educate business leaders on sustainable finance and cultivate ambitious leadership to drive change.

We worked with them to design and facilitate a six-month, transformational leadership programme for people from financial institutions across the region. The programme included immersive learning journeys in the Amazon Rainforest and the City of London.

To cultivate their change agency, we supported participants to develop personal leadership plans and organisation change strategies aimed at creating the biggest impact. The programme was designed to balance both leadership development and technical competency in sustainable finance.

Since then, participants have gone on to champion sustainable finance in their own organisations, the programme has developed their confidence and agency to drive change, as one person commented:

“I knew nothing about sustainable finance and over the course of the programme I’ve been able to support the Bank issue its first green bond.”

The Climate Group (TCG) are working to accelerate climate action towards a world of no more than 1.5°C of global warming and greater prosperity for all. They work with states and regions committed to taking bold climate action, including the industrial sector – one of the most difficult to make emission reductions.

To tackle this TCG established the Industry Transition Project involving 12 industrialised regional governments to develop policies and strategies that would accelerate the transition toward low carbon industry.

The group saw challenges resulting from policies being developed in isolation and not fully connected with regional priorities and stakeholder needs. They needed to find new approaches to developing strategies that would result in creating mutual benefits across industry, governments and local communities.

We worked with the ITP over two years to facilitate a strategy development process using a systemic leadership approach, which focused on defining the challenge from multiple perspectives, continuous engagement with stakeholder needs, mapping systems and group coaching.

Since we started working on this project, participating regional governments have shifted their approach to strategy development by reaching out to more stakeholders to identify potential policy options together and aligning their low carbon industry transition ambition with other regional priorities, such as job creation and clean air.