Calls for sustainability strategy

The topic of sustainability has been embedded in the banking sector strategy of the Liechtenstein Bankers Association (LBA) for around ten years, as Simon Tribelhorn explains in an article by Holger Franke in the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt newspaper. “Currently, no other financial center has an understanding of sustainability that is as comprehensive as ours,” the LBV Managing Director claims. According to Tribelhorn, the country can play a formative role in the transformation towards a sustainable economy. To achieve this, the financial expert maintains the finance sector must implement a sustainability strategy.

Studies have shown that sustainable investment generate yields that are as high or better even than for conventional investment. The pandemic has demonstrated that “sustainable investment is regarded as more crisis resistant than traditional investment”. This is set to intensify in future, the LBV Director adds. He even anticipates that “banks which are not sustainable will no longer be relevant or competitive and will disappear from the market in the medium to long term”.

According to Tribelhorn, companies in Liechtenstein have proven that sustainability is set to be the new normal. LGT, for example, has successfully taken sustainability into account for a long time and assumed a “pioneering role on the national and international stage”. “If some of the most successful companies in Liechtenstein and worldwide, like LGT and Hilti, which are also famous for acting with foresight, were to truly focus on sustainability, I think this would set a clear course for us all,” the financial expert says.