There are numerous approaches for the development of products and services aimed at supporting sustainable development by financial markets, resulting in the risk of what is called “standard shopping” for the lowest quality requirements and allowing greenwashing when advertising, promoting and reporting sustainable finance products and services (SFPS) in the product and service areas of:
- lending,
- asset management,
- insurance,
- payment accounts, and
- digital assets.
This standard provides a holistic approach for market actors to provide consistent information and advice on development, implementation and communication of SFPS.
The requirements and guidance in this document are formulated to allow efficient and effective internal or external assurance and verification to improve internal processes, economic effects and external credibility.
This document can also help an organization’s stakeholders to evaluate the general design and specifications of SFPS in order to assess their ESG-related claims and communicated intended impacts.
Scope
This standard provides general principles, specifies requirements for and gives guidance on the development, embedding, communication, validation and verification of sustainable finance products and services (SFPS) in the product and service areas outlined above.
It enables organizations to define, embed, communicate, attribute and effectively evaluate SFPS. It further enables successful marketing and documenting of SFPS objectives, properties and impacts, as well as validation and verification.
Applicability
The standard applies to any organization that intends to provide or is providing SFPS with an integration of defined environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects and proof of intended impacts, and can be used for aligning existing SFPS or designing new ones.
Full access to the Scope, Introduction and Terms and Definitions and list of contents used is provided via ISO’s Online Browsing Platform
If you have any questions about the standard, please email the Committee Manager, Mike Henigan, at [email protected].