Adam Riddell, Director
The Government of Jersey launched, after much consultation, its new Sustainable Finance Action Plan last week.
It aims, over the course of the next two to three years, to build maturity in Jersey’s sustainable finance ecosystem, broadly through three umbrella frameworks – risk and governance; market incentives; and international engagement.
It’s a plan that acknowledges Jersey’s ability and potential to build a leading ecosystem in this space – and while the next 12 months or so will see further consultation to drill down into those key frameworks in more detail, often in quite technical detail around, for instance, disclosure regimes, skills requirements and fiduciary duties, it represents an exciting roadmap with concrete ambitions on the horizon.
In particular, the action plan highlights ten key action points. Though there are no specific action points relating solely to communication within those points, those skills are implicit and indeed fundamental across a number of them. It talks about, for instance:
- Communicating market integrity and transparency
- Interaction through partners and forums of interest
- Promoting the opportunities Jersey’s trust framework offers
- Using data analysis to better articulate the substantial contribution Jersey can make through sustainable finance
There are clear skills requirements here for comms and marketing professionals, spanning data confidence, ethics and governance and an ability to master the ESG lexicon.
The CIPR has developed some useful ESG guides that might provide a useful point of reference in this regard.
It will be important for communications and marketing professionals in the island to familiarise themselves and get comfortable with those action points, and track them as they progress over 2025. The comms function is not detached from the action plan, and should actually play a significant role in ensuring its success overall.