Durham Global Debate - Athens

Sustainable Finance in the New Economy

This is the sixth Durham Global Debate. The Global Debate series aims to celebrate and showcase some of our key research projects via "TED-style" talks and discussions on some of the leading global challenges. They are a collaboration between Durham and our academic and industry partners. The discussion around Sustainable Finance in the New Economy is hosted and co-organised by the Department of Business Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

On Thursday 1 September a panel discussion will debate the place of sustainable finance in the new economy.

There is an evolving discussion as to whether the "old/standard" patterns of economic activity and their financing, are capable of restarting and/or facilitating global economic growth after the recent economic crisis resulting from the pandemic. To that end, this year’s Durham Global Debate in Athens, focuses on the new means of the distribution of resources in a sustainable fashion: ranging from access to financing, entrepreneurial innovation and environmental concerns, to efficient governance and regulation. To tackle these themes the availability of financing and the operation of financial markets, with a new set of standards, are crucial in promoting growth and efficient decision making, ideally in a bottom-up fashion. There has been a considerable top-down push to create a new, highly regulated, economic environment from such players that, in standard economics, would be characterised as monopolies or oligopolies with the presumption that this will help the small-to-medium enterprises and the final consumer. However, despite the regulation and the intricacies of top-down advices, this has not yet materialised  to the expected extent. Therefore, there is a strong need for another reset, a “new economy” with true sustainable finance in its core.

For more information on the debate click here

Panel

Dr. Ralph De Haas

Director of Research at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

https://ralphdehaas.com/

Dr. Luc Laeven

Director General – Research, European Central Bank (ECB)

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/research/authors/profiles/luc-laeven.en.html

Ajay Rawal

Partner, EMEIA Financial Services Sector Leader - Ernst & Young Cyprus Limited

https://www.ey.com/en_uk/people/ajay-rawal

Panel Chairs

Professor Manthos Delis, Professor of Financial Economics at Audencia Business School.

Professor Dimitrios Thomakos, Head of the Department of Business Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Durham Coordinator

Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos, Professor in Business Information Systems & Analytics, Global DBA: Durham-emlyon (GDBA) Director, Durham University Business School