NordicSIF 2025 has wrapped up in Stockholm following two days of stimulating discussions on stage and between peers during the networking between sessions and dinner enjoyed on Moderna Museet’s sunny terrace.
Organised by Swesif, this year’s conference was tackling the vast topic of the future of humanity, broken down into the following modules, each explored, debated and unpacked by a panel of experts:
– Opening Keynote
– Future Generations
– Sustainable Living – The role of consumption, health & tech
– Peace and War – Responsible Investments
– The Nordic JEDI Warrior – Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion
– A Stalled Climate Transition
For those that didn’t have the pleasure to join, as I compiled last year, here are some takeaways. I don’t promise a full summary of every point discussed and be aware that some points include my own thoughts that were stimulated during the discussions. Here we go!
Keynote: Gunhild Stordalen, EAT
As co-founder and executive director of EAT, Gunhild knows a thing or two about food. EAT is the science-based global platform for food system transformation and responsible among others for the EAT-Lancet report, aiming to fix our food system to improve planetary and human health.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
- Food system has been a miracle, we produce enough calories to feed 1.5 earths, but the food system is the largest contributor to many of our environmental issues and, while we produce enough calories, bad diet is also causing 20% of global deaths.
- Hence, Food needs fixing, both for people and planet.
- WE need a ‘Paris agreement for food’, such a global compass for targets and action does not yet exist. But watch this space! The second EAT-Lancet commission will tackle this and be launched in Stockholm in October.
- Solutions are already known and just need implementation:
- regenerative, resilient and circular systems that reduce waste
- Diets that not only ‘reduce harm’, but increase nutrients and therefore wellbeing
- Finance that fixes broken subsidies, addresses externalities and invests in the infrastructure needed to transform the food system
- TNFD was mentioned here, Gunhild floated a THFD for health!
- Denmark’s agricultural carbon tax was also raised as interesting example of future financial levers.
Fireside chat: Future Generations
This session drew into focus the future, through the critical lens of children. How we think about investments depends on our experiences (and of course our age and the generation we belong to). The angles were many: how to incorporate young people’s views into the financial industry, how to avoid harm in financed activities as well as demographic shifts in the North and further afield.
Jarrod’s key takeaways:
Bo Viktor Nylund, UNICEF Innocenti
- Demographic shifts and population changes will impact where and how finance impacts children
- Sweden will have 20% less children in 2050, with a large proportion of the world’s children residing in Africa. Poverty and lack of education will continue to be extremely relevant for this future generation
- Engage young people and start in industries that directly impact them (e.g. gaming, food). Children’s picture of the future can help us to better understand them as stakeholders and customers.
- We already impact children throughout our portfolios (both positively and negatively), so we should internalize this and become more intentional about it.
Nina Vollmer, Global Child Forum
- In general, taking a child’s perspective can be a healthy and useful starting point for assessing many future and sustainability issues.
- Existing practices that solely focus on child labour metrics can miss important elements. Family positive practices of companies have a huge impact on children, and this is also relevant in areas beyond traditional child labour hotspots.
- Thinking about the impact of products and services on children can often be overlooked.
Keynote: Karin Tegmark Wisell, Swedish Ambassador for Global Health
Our next session began a keynote from Karin Tegmark Wisell, who gave us a birds-eye-view of global health in 2025, from political challenges to considerations of how we think about disease prevention and the global interconnectedness of our common health.
Jarrod’s key takeaway:
- Local public health depends on the public health of all countries, as demonstrated through the pandemic. as such we must invest in prevention and conditions where everyone can be healthy
Panel Sustainable Living – The role of consumption, health and tech
The next panel took up where Karin left off and started to unpack the role of the financial community in improving health. The panel took several angles at the issue: the role of finance in new drug development, ensuring fair access to medicine and how the public interprets information provided by financial institutions.
Jarrod’s key takeaways:
Avanti Gupta, Access to Medicine
- How can pharma companies get the pricing of medicine correct
- This is a question that has different answers in the west vs low-income countries
- It also might challenge corporate incentives so needs to be pushed by investors
- Enhancing public reporting on access to medicines is one low-hanging fruit that can start to move the needle.
- Other actions investors can take is to join collaboratives such as the SDG 3 alliance or Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG).
Mathias Wikström, Doconomy
- In this challenging time, we must hold the line on science
- It is critical to simplify for customers, complex numbers don’t move the needle – engaging narratives do
David Seekell, HealthInvest
- An overview of how new drugs are developed is important to understand the role of investors in the process
- Initial research on the new compounds that are precursors for new drugs are funded by universities and other public money, as the risk in this stage is too high for any other party to be involved.
- Small companies are spun out to undertake pre-clinical trials. This is financed by VC.
- To continue increasing the scale of clinical trials, most companies need to IPO to raise the funds for this. This is because they are usually capital constrained, with no collateral to borrow against.
- Participating as an investor in the secondary market for these type of pharma scale-ups can help to reduce the cost of capital to undertake clinical trials of new medicine
- Supporting these small caps is where each euro can have the largest impact, as mega cap pharma companies can finance their activities without resorting to equity
- Traditional valuations don’t work here, as these companies are pre-revenue and high risk. Other frameworks are needed to assess these types of companies.
Keynote: Jacob Hallgren, Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Our next keynote zoomed us way out to the level of geopolitical tensions and the increasingly belligerent world we find ourselves in. Weapons, the rise and fall of economies and the delicate balance of power were all mentioned.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
- China’s economic rise is the game changer for global politics
- The US is calling for 5% defense spending in Europe, which is currently closer to 2%. Defense spending will rise but a large chunk of the difference between 2 and 5% in GDP spending will be allocated to civilian infrastructure that supports national defence.
- European defence contractors are much smaller and diverse than in the US, resulting in many, many smaller defence companies than in the US. This can pose some challenges to investment and scale in production.
Panel: Peace and War – Responsible Investments
The panel then turned to the question of how investments in the defence sector can be considered within a sustainable portfolio. This ranged from nuclear deterrence to the conduct of weapons companies to corruption. This panel was particularly interesting as it contained speakers who harbored different views on several subjects, resulting in a particularly stimulating and engaging discussion.
Jenny Gustafsson, AP-fondernasetikråd
- Information is scarce and being too reliant on service providers can be a risk
- Investors need to improve their understanding of what dual-use weapons and their supply chains look like. What it looks like and now and in the future, it’s constantly evolving.
- Don’t be reactive to new trends, instead go back to your policy document that defines your action and use this to define what is sustainable and what is not.
- If needed, red lines can be revisited (e.g. conventional vs controversial weapons)
- Reliance on individual policies means that we can expect more variation between Nordic firms that have historically been in lock step on this issue
Beatrice Fihn, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
- Recognise the emotions that drive the defence industries (e.g. fear)
- Caution is recommended, not to get swept up in the short term. investors should be long term and less emotional when considering weapons investments.
- There is an ongoing international effort to negotiate a new treaty on AI weapons
Ulrik Åshuvud, Transparency International
- The destruction of the rule-based norms in the US creates terrible risks for businesses
- It can increase incidences of corruption and breach of trusts that can have direct impacts on cashflows
- How does this example affect the ethical compass in other parts of the world – we might expect that this is exported to some degree.
- In the Nordics, we must hold the line against tolerance of corruption.
- This point in time is a golden opportunity for investors to push transparency in the defence sector
- With new investors opening to investing in weapons again, the momentum can be placed upon these companies to improve their sustainability initiatives
- Transparency International recently launched a business integrity tool developed for impact investors but can be used by the broader investment community, perhaps it can help with certain issues in the defence industry.
Eva Axelsson, Saab
- The pressure and engagement from investors can be welcome in defence companies
- Sustainability teams in these companies can leverage that push
- In the defence industry, qualitative leadership, culture and tone-at-the-top is critical as an adjacent to quantitative sustainability metrics.
- Defence can be part of a sustainable portfolio, it depends on the company itself
Keynote: Aygül Kabaca
Aygül opened the second day of the conference with some back to basics on DEI, given other regions (namely the US) increasingly challenging concept.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
- DEI is not charity. While it might be the morally right thing to do, it also provides competitive advantage.
- Nordic leadership in this area is more important than ever. There is an opportunity to lead and stay the course in an increasingly uncertain world.
- Inclusive finance means diversity of those who have power in the industry but also considering closely how deployed capital impacts society.
- Underrepresented people need to be able to see themselves in the institutions that shape their future.
Panel: The Nordic JEDI Warrior – Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion
The panel then launched into an interesting discussion that wasn’t afraid to challenge the notation that all diversity automatically produces a competitive advantage. The panel unpacked cognitive diversity, practical application in the hiring process and some tips on bubble hopping.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
Oshni Arachchi, Danske Bank
- While there is a general level of understanding of the why behind DEI in the Nordics, this does not exist in the rest of the world.
- How we take this forward with stakeholders from other parts of the world depends on how other people understand and interpret what DEI is.
Aygül Kabaca, AllBright
- Often lack of data holds us back, as the law prevents us from collecting the information that would allow for more targeted DEI policies
- It is critical not to simply transfer the arguments and issues with DEI from the US.
- DEI is completely different in the US compared to the Nordics
- e.g. the US has mandated quotas, which do not exist in Sweden, so the American arguments against quotas should not be used to dismantle Swedish DEI practice.
Emma Sjöström, AP7
- DEI has a very high risk of confirmation bias – meaning that people are looking for success in the studies that are being undertaken
- There are many studies that have dubious process and are not peer reviewed, yet used as evidence in the industry
- A well-referenced McKinsey report was mentioned here that many findings in that report have indeed been debunked.
- Peer reviewed research shows there are only certain DEI measures that correlate with financial success and innovation
- This is essentially cognitive diversity – diversity in the way people think
- Importantly, this is derived from more than just ethnic diversity (although ethnic diversity is of course one important measure!)
- Other aspects such as education and age can be just as important for ensuring cognitive diversity in decision making
- While Sweden has made real progress on integration of females into leadership, it takes time!
- Only 9% of publicly listed boards in Sweden have a female chair – partly attributed because the pool of CEO candidates is still small
- A practical tip: try bubble-hopping
- Effective exposing yourself to new bubbles to try and learn more about your own biases.
Fredrik Hillelson, Novare
- The long-term demographic shifts, immigration and aging populations in the Nordics make DEI a necessity, not a nice-to-have
- As a CEO of a search firm, Fredrik is always asked to provide male and female candidates, but only state-run firms ask about diversity of backgrounds
- An example here is the school that someone attended
- an interesting fact is that all of Sweden’s recent unicorns were founded by white, male attendees of Stockholm School of Economics
- We should remember that the recruitment process is always inherently biased and that more than 50% of jobs are found via contacts
- Attraction of global talent will be a key success factor for the economies of the Nordics in the next few decades
Keynote: Fedra Vanhuyse, Stockholm Environment Institute
In the last session it was time to shift to environmental questions, with Fedra providing her issues with the green transition and potential areas to search for solutions.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
- Economists underestimate climate change
- They undervalue the costs of impacts because models cannot properly account for cascading risks
- Our concept of fiduciary duty is too narrow and instead causing the juggling of responsibility by stakeholders
- The valuation of non-financial impacts needs to improve in methodology and uptake
- Perfection is overrated, wicked problems do not have perfect solutions – don’t search for them, start implementing imperfect, but incremental solutions today
Panel: A stalled climate transition
The final panel doubled down on the topic of a stalled transition, which immediately came into question with an interesting discussion if we are indeed stalled or not, as well as the reasons behind a potential stall.
Jarrod’s takeaways:
Mattias Frumerie, Swedish Ministry of Climate and Enterprise
- The climate backlash in Europe is very different than in the US and it is critical to remember this
- We are not completely insulated, but also not currently exposed to the very same forces as the financial sector in the states
- In Europe, the changes can be attributed to pragmatism rather than ideology as in the US
- Insurers might be the actors with the best models that can describe the real climate risk to people and societies, public sector would really benefit from access to these – how can be they shared?
Peter Sandahl, Nordea
- WE are currently in an era-change for climate finance
- From the era of opportunity and target setting to practical solutions and solving structural problems
- How the industry alliances can adapt to this will shape their relevance in the future
- This is the time to ensure that institutions have the right incentives in place to achieve their set targets.
- The ‘how’ emissions are reduced really matters
- If the reduction of financed emissions becomes the end itself, then there will be missed opportunities in the portfolio
- Currently a huge amount of climate finance is pouring into mitigation – but what is the correct balance to also ensure that adaptation is adequately financed?
Elle Merete Omma, Sami Council
- Nordics view themselves are leaders of human rights, but there are real issues on our doorstep
- Tensions between green energy, minerals and Sami rights is unresolved
- The Sami are not anti-development, they need to be justly compensated and involved in the process
- Investors and Sami currently don’t speak the same language on these issues
- this needs to be resolved by progress from both sides to be able to find a sustainable solution
Fedra Vanhuyse, SEI
- There is a need to account for the multiple impacts of climate change, when they act together
- The example is flooding after a drought, which will cause much more impact together than either acting alone
Wrap up:
The day was wrapped up by the brilliant moderator Katrine Kielos and Swesif’s chair Jennie Ahrén. Finally, the conference baton was handed to Finsif for 2026. The date is set August 25th and we can’t wait to continue the conversation!
Jarrod Luxton
Chair of FINSIF´s NordicSIF working group, Member of the Board, FINSIF
