ABN AMRO and Vlerick Business School extend structural collaboration with another four years

Three years after the start of their structural cooperation in sustainable finance, ABN AMRO Private Banking Belgium and Vlerick Business School announce that they are continuing this successful collaboration for at least four years. With the extended cooperation, ABN AMRO Private Banking Belgium aims to obtain and promote academic insights in sustainable finance and impact investing on the one hand. ABN AMRO's expertise in these fields is an added value in this respect. On the other hand, ABN AMRO is funding a PhD project on circularity, and the special financing and investment challenges such a model entails. To this end, it is working closely with David Veredas, professor of finance and sustainability at Vlerick Business School. 

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important concept within both finance and academia. At Vlerick Business School, the Centre for Sustainable Finance was therefore established, a unique knowledge platform that gathers academic research to push decision-making within the financial sector in a sustainable direction. As part of its structural collaboration with Vlerick, ABN AMRO is a privileged partner of this knowledge platform.

The renewal of the collaboration builds on the cooperation of previous years. In one of the earlier studies, for example, Professor David Veredas and PhD student Dimitrios Kolokas, both associated with the Centre for Sustainable Finance, investigated the impact of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) performance on the creditworthiness of SMEs, as a measure of their resilience. The study, which focused on 350 SMEs, found that it pays for SMEs to invest in sustainability because it increases their creditworthiness. For example, it found that an 11% improvement in their ESG performance results in a 3.5% reduction in credit risk. 

With the support of ABN AMRO, the insights from Vlerick Business School's existing and future research can provide lasting value to entrepreneurs in Belgium. In this way, we will work together towards a more sustainable entrepreneurial landscape.