Building Bridges 2025 Programme

Costs and Opportunities of Real Impact: What It Takes for Impact-First Investments to Scale and Complement Traditional Aid

To scale impact-first investment solutions – especially NGO-led or hybrid models – we must uphold integrity and mission while attracting catalytic capital and managing risk. Impact-first investing often involves trade-offs, yet the cost of inaction is higher.

How can finance and philanthropy respond to the plastic issue?

Countdown to Compliance: Preparing for FINMA’s Nature Risk Disclosure Requirements

From 1st January 2028, FINMA will introduce mandatory nature risk reporting requirements for supervised institutions — a regulatory shift set to reshape how organisations account for their nature-related impacts, dependencies, and risks.

Understanding Climate Implications for Assets in Long-Term Portfolios

Given the materiality of climate change as financial risk, nuanced measurement of portfolio vulnerability and company impact is needed, considering differences in regional exposures and asset classes.

Fixed income, flexible solutions: the bond index reshaping climate finance

This session showcases the first fixed income index to cover the whole fossil fuel chain, providing objective criteria needed to drive down real-world emissions through changing flows of capital.

Cohorts Connect: Warm Data Lab

Cohorts Connect at Building Bridges 2025 introduces a two-part model for structured connection and reflection to conversation and networking. It is designed to support peer exchange, deepen shared understanding, and strengthen cross-sector collaboration in a way that feels purposeful, open, and human.

Impact Investing for Systemic Change: Unlocking the Potential of Catalytic Capital

How can catalytic capital drive systemic change in emerging markets? How can we demystify this process for those on the journey? This interactive session explores how impact funders, now more than ever, are deploying the capital continuum and using innovative and blended finance to unlock scalable solutions.

Unlocking opportunities in nature finance

The event will tackle the many angles that nature finance can take – from shareholder engagement, financing opportunities locally (in Switzerland), and investing opportunities globally to risk mitigation and understanding of investors’ value-chain.

Driving action on physical risk in value chains

There is clear evidence of how physical impacts are damaging businesses and value chains, but companies and investors have insufficient visibility on the risks that can cause business interruption and financial losses.

Tracking and Transforming Net Zero Finance: Integrity, Innovation, and Impact

This session will explore where we stand on net zero finance and where we need to go. Drawing on CPI’s Net Zero Finance Tracker and insights from the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, it will examine both the integrity of climate commitments, observed progress and impacts in the real economy, and current drivers and gaps in action and how to address them.

Pricing Nature on the Balance Sheet

This collaborative session, curated by Building Bridges and the Hoffmann Centre for Global Sustainability at the Geneva Graduate Institute, will explore one of the most transformative shifts in our economic system: recognizing nature as a critical but unvalued asset.

ROI or Perish: Tech, Impact & the New Rules of Sustainable Business

The old sustainability playbook is dead, subsidies are vanishing. Geopolitical chaos is the new normal. Smart organizations are turning crisis into opportunity. This isn’t about regulatory box-ticking. It’s about hard numbers, attractive ROI, and driving impact.

Financing the Blue Economy: Turning Ocean Commitments into Capital Flows

This session explores how global ocean commitments—from international treaties to national plastic reduction targets—can be translated into tangible investment opportunities. It will highlight emerging financial instruments, innovations in marine conservation finance, and strategies to channel capital toward ocean health, coastal resilience, and sustainable livelihoods in the blue economy.

Strengthening Financial Institutions Corporate Governance to promote respect for Human Rights

This workshop will examine the role of corporate boards of financial institutions in promoting respect for human rights.

Transition Finance in Action: Investing in Scalable Solutions for Real-World Impact

Achieving real-world impact through scalable investment solutions is essential to a successful climate transition. This workshop brings together key actors to explore how transition finance can drive tangible decarbonization through impact investing, smart incentives, stewardship, carbon pricing, and directing capital to high-need sectors and geographies.

Designing the Next Asset Class: Climate-Linked Private Debt

Institutional investors increasingly seek climate-aligned debt financing opportunities in emerging markets, yet systemic barriers, from FX volatility to fragmented deal flow, prevent capital inflows.

Infrastructure’s Role in Europe’s Transformation

As Europe accelerates its green and digital transformation, a €2.5 trillion funding gap persists in mid-market infrastructure—critical for scaling energy, digital, and transport projects. This event explores investment opportunities, regulatory stability, and the role of private capital in driving sustainable growth.