{"id":9351,"date":"2026-04-27T21:39:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.openvaluefoundation.org\/?p=9351"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:39:27","slug":"blog-post-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/2026\/04\/27\/blog-post-78\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog post 78"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last October, Deusto Business School, in collaboration with ICADE, brought together Juan Carlos Delrieu, Director of Strategy and Sustainability at the Spanish Banking Association, Juli\u00e1n P\u00e9rez de Madrid, Director of Corporate & Investment Banking at Banco Sabadell, and our founder, Mar\u00eda \u00c1ngeles Le\u00f3n, for a round table discussion on challenges and prospects of green and sustainable finance.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following that meeting, at the Open Value Foundation we had the opportunity to speak with Juan Carlos Delrieu to delve, in the first instance, into the global trends in sustainable finance and the role of banking.<\/a>

In this second part of the interview, we share the challenges, opportunities of sustainable finance, and their degree of maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OVF: What?<\/strong>What obstacles continue to hinder the advancement of Sustainable Finance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JC:<\/strong>  There are two groups of challenges: the usual ones, concerning the lack of concreteness of some concepts, the absence of adequate information, and data quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difficulty in defining what is green or sustainable and what is not, or what is ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) and what is not, is the first of the obstacles. The Taxonomy Regulation approved by the European Commission seeks to clarify this confusion, but it is still far from agreeing on the practical implementation of this classification. Furthermore, the taxonomy, for now, leaves out an adequate definition of what is understood by social issues, something that the European Commission plans to address in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this problem is added the infinity of methodologies and metrics that exist to approach this world, many of them very complex, which leads to strong confusion that is aggravated by observing the notable discrepancy between different rating agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another monumental challenge relates to disclosure and reporting, given the lack of standardisation. Each entity or company reports based on its own understanding or interest, running the risk of greenwashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other, lesser obstacles that I do not wish to fail to mention. One is the importance of distinguishing between the short and medium term, a dichotomy we do not know how to resolve because financial markets demand short-term results, whereas the risks of climate change require much more time and maturity. In the same way that I feel the value of prudence is not always measured, a value which, given the high degree of uncertainty we face, should be above debate. However, we still see political, business, and opinion leaders questioning and denying the impact that climate change can have on our environment, whether through physical or transition risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OVF: What other elements are key in green and sustainable finance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JC:<\/strong>  Besides reporting <\/em>and the disclosure, there are other elements I'd like to highlight which probably respond to Nicholas Stern's latest book: Why are we waiting?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sense of urgency and ambition must be imposed. This ambition ultimately translates into four vital changes. The first is that sustainable finance should move from debate, from design, from purpose, to impact. To achieve this, stable and predictable regulation is essential, just as governments and companies must demonstrate the traceability of their commitment. In other words, it is as important to state the ambition as it is to define the path, the plans and the actions that will be defined to achieve those objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I suggest that we should begin to introduce a range of incentives that positively promote engagement in mitigating the impact arising from climate change, or negatively through taxation or other market mechanisms (correct CO2 emission prices, removal of subsidies, etc.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OVF: Ultimately, what is the maturity level of Sustainable Finance and what prospects do you foresee?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JC:<\/strong> I think there is still a lot of ground to cover. The European Banking Authority plans to publish its Guide on Sustainable Finance in 2025, the European Taxonomy Regulation only addresses aspects linked to climate change, but leaves out environmental and social concepts. In Spain, the draft Climate Change and Energy Transition Law has not yet been approved, and citizens collectively show strong concern about the risks derived from climate change, but individually our degree of involvement and responsibility is notably reduced. There are obstacles that we are discussing and that we will undoubtedly overcome, but currently they represent a hindrance in many areas. However, at the current pace of progress, with the impetus of the European Green Deal and the funds included in the Next Generation EU Plan and the commitment of the stakeholders, we will reach a very reasonable state of maturity sooner than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highly probable consolidation between rating agencies and data providers will help achieve this maturity through a combination of agreed metrics and standards, allowing for a degree of comparability, thereby generating more transparency and facilitating agents' decisions to be made with the best available information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the outlook, I foresee a future where the impact of our actions and decisions will be the gradient that marks the equilibrium formed by the profitability-risk-sustainability trinomial. The verb \u2018to impact\u2019 must gain more relevance than desire or commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I anticipate greater sensitivity towards the circular economy. This is a field in which considerable progress has been made in a good number of European countries and which, in Spain, due to its lag, offers ample room for manoeuvre to move forward decisively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to think that the 'G' for governance will eventually carry as much weight as environmental or social issues, as only with responsibility and determination will the efforts we make in sustainability tend to be lasting. Furthermore, there must be a meeting point between social commitment to these issues (bottom-up) and companies' conviction to promote an environmentally friendly transformation, and this top-down approach necessarily requires the involvement of a company's Board of Directors and management team.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, being very bold, I anticipate a future where impact and co-responsibility will be the true lynchpins of change.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

El pasado octubre, Deusto Business School en colaboraci\u00f3n con ICADE, reuni\u00f3 a Juan Carlos Delrieu, Director de Estrategia y Sostenibilidad en la Asociaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Banca, Juli\u00e1n P\u00e9rez de Madrid, Director de Corporate & Investment Banking de Banco Sabadell, y a nuestra fundadora, Mar\u00eda \u00c1ngeles Le\u00f3n en una mesa redonda sobre los retos y las perspectivas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9353,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9351\/revisions\/9353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openvaluefoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}