Paths for a desirable future - Foundation Office Brazil
Event Reports
Within the project "Paths for a desirable future", a workshop on Ecological Finance was held on the 4th of June 2014. The project began two years ago in collaboration with KAS Brazil’s International Office. Supporting the event was the Rio based Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), which is, among other things, involved in the field of sustainable development. With the aim to putting sustainable development on the national Brazilian agenda, CEBRI brings government representatives and private sector and civil society representatives to the table. The workshop on Ecological Finance presented a continuation of previous work in this context. After a brief welcome by the CEBRI-chairman, Luiz Augusto Castro Neves, and Christian Matthäus, the Deputy Head of KAS Brazil and Luiz Alberto Machado, Deputy Director of the Faculty of Economics, Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, the first round of discussions was initiated by Helena Gonçalves, a representative of the organization ecosSISTEMAS ecosSISTEMAS. At the center of their observations stood the practicality of economic instruments for reducing environmental problems and innovative proposals for the expansion of the ecological financing in Brazil. The keynote speech was followed by a discussion among the participants. Representatives of international institutions such as the TNC (The Nature Conservancy), the WRI (World Resources Institute), the Sustainability Center of the Getulio Vargas Foundation ((FGV-GVces)) as well as the Santander Bank's Sustainability officer and the Deputy of São Paulo's Environmental Services, Ricardo Brandão Figueiredo, were present and contributed significantly to critical but constructive analysis. The second panel, prompted by a lecture by Erika Pinto, a representative of the Research Institute Amazonia (IPAM), discussed different perspectives for developing Sustainable Finance in Brazil. Pinto referred to among other things, the rising global greenhouse gas emissions - the ten largest countries are responsible for 75% of these emissions - and then she gave a brief outline of international agreements concerning the global environment and climate change policy. She then discussed the national situation; spoke of positive changes among which is the curbing of illegal logging in the Amazon region and emphasized her think tank´s innovative ideas. Topics discussed included Brazil´s tax incentive policy, which is a powerful state instrument that could ensure sustainable long term development, but so far is yet to be implemented. There are plenty of possibilities for ecological development in Brazil, but so far according to the general view, an effective incentive structure is lacking.
The event allowed for a constructive exchange of ideas between representatives from different institutions ranging from scientific, diplomatic, the banking sector and society at large. The road towards “Paths for a desirable future” could be further advanced during this workshop. The next workshop will take place in October.
