Independent and
apolitical.
Our story
ISFC was founded in spring 2020 to plug a knowledge and capacity gap on sustainable finance topics in Central and Eastern Europe, with the view to expand to Southern Europe and Western Balkans.
Our team combines private and public sector expertise in finance, policy, applied research, and stakeholder engagement. We are a small, creative team with International experience and a passion for sustainable finance.
We help financial institutions, investors, and policymakers to integrate sustainability into strategy and practice, making it less abstract — so that institutions can leverage financial, human, and environmental capital for maximum wellbeing and prosperity.
Bursting sustainable finance out of its bubble
We work with partner institutions and networks to bring sustainable finance perspectives into discussions about policies or sectors that are seen by many as unrelated to sustainable finance: security and defence, industrial transformation, energy transition, clean tech scaling, and many other siloed topics.
We bring new ways of looking at problems and potential solutions. Our aim is to disrupt policy and practice groupthink, or outdated and simplistic patterns of thinking. We foster interdisciplinary knowledge exchange to improve cross-issue and cross-sectoral networks of trust in order to drive better outcomes.
Creating value
with sustainability
We act as a catalyst for more sustainable financial decision-making across both the public and private sectors. Our mission is to improve the allocation and use of financial, environmental, and human capital - in order to deliver a more resilient and thriving economy. To make this a reality, we maintain a neutral, expertise-based profile and we work closely with the private sector to build trust and feedback loops that allow us to improve policies and market practices.
We focus our efforts across three thematic areas →
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Public & private finance for multi-dimensional security
We bring sustainable finance out of its silo. We carefully monitor and analyse systems, identifying the key topics or opportunities for targeted interventions that can have a catalytic effect on the particular sector or issue area.
We work on:
industrial transformation and its financing,
geopolitics/ political economy of climate change and sustainable finance,
shifting trade patterns that are linked to the transition to low carbon economic models.
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We work closely with financial institutions, asset managers, and investors to improve:
Investment decision-making and analysis
Capital allocation strategies
Product design and ESG integration
Our research and hands-on work with the financial community cover topics from SFDR compliance to ESG scoring methodologies and portfolio-level sustainability integration.
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We work closely with the private and public sector stakeholders to design and analyse the best options for the mobilisation of private finance.
Improved financial schemes, including guarantees and subsidised interest rates
Venture debt
Private equity
Venture capital
Annual Report 2024
The ISFC 2024 Report provides an overview of our work throughout the year. It brings together a summary of our projects, publications, events, and partnerships undertaken in 2024, highlighting the areas where we engaged with stakeholders and contributed to the sustainable finance agenda.
