How can artificial intelligence (AI) contribute to greater sustainability in the Swiss financial industry? Access to a wide variety of data sources enables new evaluations and analyses and can validate sustainability claims.
A new report by Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) along a "data decision process." The report from the SSF Spotlight series shows how AI contributes to greater sustainability in the Swiss financial industry. This technology has been used in the financial sector for years, for example in the creation of risk models or for fraud detection. AI applications are now rapidly gaining importance in sustainable finance. However, there are still very few publications that explain the benefits of the technology for all areas of finance. Sabine Döbeli, CEO of SSF, is pleased to be able to fill this gap: "We are investigating the use of AI along a 'data decision process'. This structure allows AI applications to be mapped uniformly across different business areas. SSF worked with numerous experts from research and practice to produce the report.
Access to new data thanks to generative AI
The possibilities of AI tools are developing rapidly. Until recently unthinkable, today a reality: useful data can be extracted, filtered, and processed from company reports, memos, videos, images, audio messages, and social media. Advances in generative AI make it possible to compile huge amounts of data in a very short time and extract the relevant information from it. "Access to a wide variety of data sources enables new evaluations and analyses," explains Romain Leroy-Castillo, Director of Artificial Intelligence and Education and author of the Spotlight. "Analysts can now, for example, verify whether companies' sustainability claims are accurate, what impact green bonds have, or what progress can actually be demonstrated in a CO2 project. This will strengthen the credibility of sustainable finance."
Human-machine collaboration
The theoretical section is supplemented with practical examples. The financial companies and research institutes surveyed provide insight into their projects and their practical approach. Whether it is "simplifying the double materiality assessment process" or "using satellite images and computer vision to assess endangered biodiversity," all examples demonstrate that AI substantially simplifies and accelerates workflows, or even both. Romain Leroy-Castillo points out a crucial fact: "All participants emphasized that people remain crucial in their projects, either for process execution or management." The author is convinced that AI models will be significantly refined in the future. He also has high expectations for agentic AI ( ), but most applications are still in their infancy. Questions of ethics and responsibility need to be discussed now. The report provides a good starting point for this. Anyone interested in reading about the history of the technology will find an overview in the appendix to the study.
The SSF Spotlight report "How Artificial Intelligence Contributes to Effective Sustainable Finance" can be found here.
