Last year, a feeling emerged that Finnish investors were starting to consider responsible investment to a greater extent. Several investors had signed up to the Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) during the autumn and there seemed to be potential in the air. Last summer, myself and Mikael Fast at Nordea began to think about how to get Finnish investors to co-operate on these issues. The church has been working with responsible investments for a few years and Nordea has also been quite active. We started to establish contacts with all Finnish PRI signatories and got a very positive response. Finsif will be launched on the back of a large seminar for investors. It will be interesting to see what happens afterwards.

What is the ambition of Finsif?

The ambition is to be a forum for discussion, to spread information and support research. We also hope to have an advisory role. We will be working together with the PRI and although we don’t require new members to be PRI signatories, it’s something that we recommend. There is also a great potential to increase co-operation between the Nordic countries.

There have been a lot of misconceptions about responsible investment, which has presented a great obstacle for the industry to move forward. Many still believe it’s unprofitable, only about excluding certain sectors and very much a niche area. We hope to correct these misunderstandings.

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