Fill out the form to stay updated on ecosystem innovation topics, activities and opportunities Cetif
More than 30,000 professionals make up the ecosystem of Cetif: we facilitate the meeting and exchange between banks, insurers and companies in an academic Center, competent and independent environment to share knowledge, experience and strategies on the most innovative drivers of change.
16 Research Hubs focused on dynamics of strategic evolution, regulatory updates, organizational and process practices, and the effects of digitization: we study innovation trends and best practices and share them with our communities.
Over 60 events including Main events (Workshop and Summit) and Community events (related to research activities) and Webinar: we bring together banks, insurance companies and businesses for shared growth on trends and challenges to outline innovative development strategies.
More than 40 Executive Education tracks, 4 Master's programs and numerous Company Specific Programs: we transfer innovative financial-oriented content with a scientific approach.
An experimental spin off combining academic research and entrepreneurial approach: we turn innovation and digitization into a concrete business advantage.
The financial sector is redesigning its lending and investment processes, more consistently incorporating ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria into its assessments.
The spread on a global scale of regulations requiring mandatory disclosure of ESG information, such as the CSRD directives, implemented by Legislative Decree 125/2024, and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, CSDD (2024/1760) require companies to provide detailed data on these issues in parallel with traditional financial disclosures.
This represents a significant change in corporate reporting and is an inescapable sign of the growing relevance of the topic. In parallel, the market for sustainable lending, SLL, has experienced remarkable growth, particularly pronounced in Europe: the total volume of SLL issuance has increased with an exponential trend in recent years, reflecting the financial sector's growing commitment to sustainability goals.
In this context, the interconnection between ESG rating and creditworthiness assessment gains more strategic importance for financial institutions.
Rating agencies are systematically incorporating ESG factors into their rating methodologies., recognizing them as potential indicators of credit risk.
Initiatives promoted by the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) highlight how the sustainability metrics are becoming an integral part of credit risk assessment, transforming traditional assessment processes and analyzing their impact on issuer financial strength. The analysis focuses mainly on three aspects: the ability of the issuer to convert assets to cash considering ESG factors, the influence of these factors on the cost of capital through changes in yields, and their impact on profitability and refinancing risks.
The assessment combines quantitative data with qualitative information gathered through interviews with managers and analysis of company reports, considering material ESG factors for default risk.
The agencies examine two levels of risk: issuer-specific, which includes aspects of governance, regulatory compliance, and corporate reputation, and sector/geographic, which assesses risks related to the operating environment, including potential regulatory and technological changes. In addition, banks are developing increasingly sophisticated approaches to integrate these elements into their financing decisions.
The approach is integrated both in the analysis of the counterparty requesting the financing and in the examination of the intrinsic characteristics of the project being evaluated: performance in the ESG sphere, commitments made in the area of climate change mitigation, and the benchmarks of the relevant sector.
This structured approach enables banks to effectively manage risks and ensure compliance with sustainability policies while making thoughtful and informed lending decisions.
ESG principles are being extended to the entire value chain. The concept of sustainable supply chain finance is emerging as a powerful tool for promoting sustainable practices across the entire supply chain, considering the entire ecosystem of suppliers and business partners, and developing sophisticated incentive mechanisms.
One of the most significant obstacles is managing data quality and uniformity, resulting in costs from data processing. According to data from the Research Insight - ESG & Sustainable Finance HUB, Cetif (2024), 92 percent of institutions consider data comparability and standardization to be the main obstacle (an increase of 59 percent since 2023), while 67 percent report critical data accuracy issues, despite the percentage of ESG data available for credit risk management being one of the highest (80 percent). The multiplicity of data sources used to obtain a complete picture can generate issues of consistency and comparability. Regarding the data sources used forESG Scoring, 61 percent come from internal data. The emerging trend is to adopt a hybrid approach, combining internal analysis with external assessments, allowing for a more complete and balanced perspective.
The use of advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence is playing a crucial role in this transformation. These tools make it possible to analyze large amounts of data and identify patterns and correlations that might escape traditional analysis, providing a more complete and accurate view of the sustainability profile of companies and their supply chains. The future of finance will be intrinsically linked to the ability to assess and promote sustainability not only at the level of the individual company, but of the entire economic ecosystem.