In July 2019, the UK government published its first Green Finance Strategy. This had three objectives:

• Greening finance by supporting the financial services sector to align with the UK’s net zero commitment, the need to adapt to climate change and the UK’s commitment to nature’s recovery.

• Financing green by mobilising private investment at scale to support clean and resilient growth.

• Supporting financial services to capture the opportunity presented by the transition to a net zero and nature-positive economy, cementing UK leadership in green finance and ensuring that businesses can benefit.

The updated Green Finance Strategy will take stock of progress so far and set out how the UK can better ensure the financial services industry is supporting the UK’s energy security, climate and environmental objectives. These objectives have been established through several flagship publications and UK government actions:

• the UK government published the Net Zero Strategy setting out how it will decarbonise the economy by 2050, supporting jobs and levelling up the UK (October 2021)

• the UK government set out a new Energy Security Strategy, designed to boost Britain’s energy security and independence following Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine and rising global energy prices (April 2022)

• the UK government adopted the world-leading landmark Environment Act 2021, putting environmental goals, such as reversing the decline in biodiversity, on a statutory footing (November 2021)

• and the National Adaptation Programme, which sets out what the UK government, businesses and society are doing to better prepare for the impacts of climate change