By Victoria McCarron

On 11 April 2023, the FCA published a press release announcing the first Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN)’s first ever Greenwashing TechSprint, which the FCA will host on its Digital Sandbox.

The TechSprint aims to facilitate collaboration between international regulators, firms and innovators in order to address sustainable finance. Its ultimate objective is to develop a tool or a solution to effectively tackle the risk of greenwashing in the financial services industry.

GFIN has set out two ‘problem statements’ for the TechSprint as focus areas for participants:

• Problem Statement 01 - How can technology, including AI and machine learning, enable regulators/supervisors to verify that ESG/sustainability-related product claims to retail consumers are accurate and complete.  
• Problem Statement 02 - How can technology help to monitor, collate and identify examples of greenwashing from financial services firms’ websites, social media platforms and other documentation or data which can also be shared across jurisdictions.

So far, 13 international regulators, alongside firms and innovators have agreed to participate in the TechSprint. The TechSprint will begin on 5 June 2023, running for three months and ending with a showcase on 13 and 14 September 2023. The application window for interested UK-based firms opens on 17 April 2023 and closes on 21 May 2023.

For further sustainable finance updates, please visit the Burges Salmon blog.