UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) - Implementation Support Lead Banking

Implementation Guidance : PRB Signatories commit to analyzing their impact, setting targets in areas of most significant impact and reporting regularly on their progress within the first four years of their responsible banking journeys. These steps are often new to banks and need to be communicated and explained. Throughout the responsible banking journey, banks need to be onboarded, participate in working groups and workshops, engage with and work on the materials and guidance documents that UNEP FI has produced, develop new approaches and methods for sometimes new areas of work for banks and build capacity in these areas. All these elements must be accompanied, coordinated and managed. Topics that arise in the market as new trends, or are demanded for by members, also fall within the remit of the Implementation Lead, such as a project on the responsible usage of AI. The Implementation Lead oversees coordinating the implementation guidance efforts described, delivered by different members of the team, to support banks in advancing from foundational to leading practices, the result of this providing members with the support they need and ultimately showing them added value of being a UNEP FI signatory.

Thematic guidance : PRB Signatories commit to setting targets in areas they identify to have most significant impact in and act in their responsible banking journeys. Some of the existing guidance needs to be updated and refined over time, some new guidance documents must be developed (e.g. on integrated approaches across different thematic areas, or on circular economy as an enabler for the four priority areas for a global responsible banking sector). One big strategic goal of this work is to drive innovation and shape global good practice across all four interconnected priority areas (climate, nature, healthy & inclusive economies and human rights). All these efforts to guide banks in their thematic works need to be coordinated with other UNEP FI thematic leads as well as external stakeholders, to ensure consistency and streamlined delivery of support at global and regional levels. The result of this is driving norms and shaping good practices in the global responsible banking sector.

Client engagement worktrack: One of the top banking priorities over the coming years will be the to support the real economy transition by helping banks to support client transition. For that reason, a new multi-year initiative designed to strengthen client engagement practices has been set up, the PRB Client Engagement Work track on Sustainability. This is an umbrella initiative under which several workstreams will be running in parallel, starting with a workstream on the Essentials on Client Engagement, a workstream on Business Case & Sectoral Opportunities and a workstream on supporting SME clients in their sustainability journeys. The work track as well as the different workstream need to be overseen and managed, falling under the remit of the Implementation Lead as well. The result of this is to support banks’ clients transition their business models, thus supporting the real economy transition.

PRB Framework : Following the PRB 2030 process and the framework review undertaken in 2024 and 2025, the PRB framework has evolved, with a UN Responsible Banking Journey being the backbone of implementation moving forward. Guidance materials, reports, Community of Practice summary notes and recordings as well as regional capacity building materials need to be coordinated and aligned with the evolved framework, which is an effort across the different UNEP FI teams and is coordinated by the Implementation Support Lead as well. In addition to that, the Implementation Lead acts as the banking focal point for the PRB Academy, the training platform of the Principles for Responsible Banking, by providing strategic advice on members needs and module content, as well as signing off on module developed. Furthermore, the Implementation Lead plays a crucial role in providing steer and inputs across UNEP FI in terms of framework alignment and connecting the dots between different initiatives, given the Lead’s cross‑cutting and strategic overview role. The result of this is streamlined offering across UNEP FI, thus providing high‑quality services to members at any point of their implementation journeys.