Ivan McKee tells fringe event that Scotland can be a home of ethical finance

Business minister Ivan McKee has told a fringe event at the SNP conference that Scotland can become globally recognised as a home of ethical finance.

Speaking at a Holyrood fringe event organised in partnership with the Investment Association, McKee said representatives of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) had told him four years ago that Scotland could become the “Davos of ethical finance”, a reference to the Swiss resort which hosts the World Economic Forum.

He said: “Scotland is becoming recognised globally as the place where you want to be if you are serious about investing at scale for the future, and the place where you want to be if you want to build an edge on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investment.

“I think that is our aspiration and ambition and we are putting the building blocks in place for that.

“The Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) is an organisation that has built up over the last three or four years. When they first came to see me about four years ago, they told me that they wanted Scotland to be ‘the Davos of ethical finance’.

“I said good luck. To be honest, they are doing a great job.  

“I was at an event that they [GEFI] organised a couple of months ago which brought investment managers from all over the world, and they said that Scotland really is good at this stuff [ethical finance].

“We have all the building blocks and all the infrastructure there, and I think in the next five years it we can really cement that, and it could be tremendous for Scotland’s economy.”