This expert post is courtesy of Natalia Abril Bonilla, Senior Standards Officer, and Lisa van den Hoven, Standards Manager, GRI

In 2025, it feels like we are in a period of declining optimism. As the recent World Economic Forum Global Risks Report set out, state-based armed conflict, extreme weather events, fake news and falling trust – together with deepening societal and political polarization – are contributing to a volatile and uncertain landscape for the years ahead. 

These worldwide trends not only represent threats to financial stability, with far-reaching consequences for society and the environment; they are deeply intertwined within the global economy. Unsustainable energy and material use creates the conditions that drive climate change and biodiversity loss. A rise in conflict and warfare is ramping up arms manufacturing and distribution. Meanwhile, technological innovation – particularly in AI and algorithmic systems, and the rapid spread of generative AI (Gen AI) – is accelerating the production and dissemination of misinformation and disinformation. 

Key Roles  

Financial institutions are a key enabler of economic activities across all sectors – including  greenhouse gas-intensive industries, information and technology, or defense and arms manufacturing. By providing credit, payment services, investment and insurance cover, financial services organizations facilitate economic activity and can be involved with the positive and negative impacts that result from it. As such, the financial services sector is uniquely positioned to influence how the impacts of organizations unfold and plays a key role in addressing global risks. 

For example, infrastructure projects funded by the financial sector can lead to the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, while supporting job creation and local economic development. By setting expectations, offering incentives and applying conditions – or choosing not to finance, invest, or insure certain activities – financial institutions can influence social and environmental outcomes of corporate activity.  

Insurers can promote risk prevention and resilience. Investors can influence business practices through stewardship efforts – by engaging with the companies they invest in, participating in shareholder meetings, and voting on key company decisions. Banks can link financing terms to environmental and social outcomes. 

Standards

Recognizing the unique position of financial services organizations, GRI launched the Sector Standards Project for Financial Services. GRI Sector Standards for Financial Services will provide a structured roadmap to identify, manage and communicate the sector’s most significant impacts on people and planet. 

The three proposed new GRI Sector Standards – for banking, insurance and capital markets – include disclosures that focus on how organizations assess and address impacts through their business relationships. These disclosures provide context on portfolio-wide processes and policies, and ask organizations to outline how they assess and manage impacts, including actions such as engaging with institutional customers and investees, adjusting portfolio composition, and enabling remediation of impact.  

Global Challenges

The sector standards for financial services also intend to include separate topics that address specific impacts, such as non-discrimination and equal opportunity, and conflict-affected and high-risk areas. This allows financial services organizations to assess their involvement with these topics and address them in greater detail. 

Impacts related to non-discrimination may intersect with emerging concerns around misinformation and disinformation – especially in the context of AI and Gen AI technologies. Financial institutions that provide capital to AI and Gen AI technology firms can identify information-related impacts and risks as significant to their portfolios, and use their leverage to promote ethical AI governance. This may include encouraging robust oversight frameworks, transparency policies, and mechanisms for remedying harms caused by algorithmic bias or misleading content.  

Similarly, financial services organizations with connections in their portfolios to conflict-related impacts – for example, investments in sectors that extract or source materials from conflict-prone areas, or in the defense sector when investees export weapons to those areas – can incorporate conflict sensitivity into their decision-making. This includes using tools such as corruption indices and lists of business activities linked to international humanitarian law violations.    

Shaping the Future

No single sector can solve the world’s most pressing challenges. However, by understanding and taking responsibility for their impacts, every sector can respond to global risks. By incorporating impact and embedding due diligence into decision-making, and influencing institutional customers and investees to adopt more responsible business practices, financial institutions can mitigate significant negative impacts. This includes those that give rise to global risks and direct capital toward activities that contribute to positive impacts, for the benefit of people and planet. 

About the Experts

Lisa van den Hoven is a manager in the GRI Sector Standards Program, where she has been working on the Financial Services Sector Standards since June 2023. Lisa has a background in sustainability standards and assurance, previously working at the Rainforest Alliance. She holds a master’s degree in Intercultural Communication from the University of Utrecht. 

Natalia Abril Bonilla is a senior standards officer in the GRI Sector Standards Program, where she has been working on the Financial Services Sector Standards. Natalia has a background in social and environmental impact research in the finance, energy, coal, and agriculture sectors. She holds a master’s degree in development studies, majoring in Social Policy for Development, from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University. 

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an independent nonprofit organization for research.