Lecture by Mr. Tomomitsu Victor Maruta, a sustainability funding associate officer at the European Investment Bank

SDGs Course Taught by Visiting Lecturers
Mr. Tomomitsu Victor Maruta, a sustainability funding associate officer at the European Investment Bank, delivered a lecture on a personal capacity to students from the International Business Studies Program and undergraduate students from the Faculty of Economics on 27 May.
This lecture, “An introduction to sustainable finance-promises and ambiguities”, highlighted the rising demand for various sustainable finance products as well as the major obstacle to further growth: lack of clarity in the definition of sustainable finance.
As way of introduction, Maruta recalled the guidelines of Soka University’s faculty of economics: a nexus between global environmental and social issues, economics as a pragmatic tool and the importance of combining cool heads with warm hearts.
Students discovered the history of sustainable finance, notably the recent exponential growth of the green and social bonds’ markets. They learnt more about the features of the main sustainable finance products. Maruta also presented the variety of public and private market participants across geographies from the supply-side and the demand-side.
He depicted the main issue of sustainable finance which is the lack of clarity, highlighting operational challenges at stake with various aspects e.g. SDGs, transition finance, ESG ratings, blue finance, impact reporting. The lecture addressed all the SDGs by covering both environmental and social aspects and highlighting the operational challenges of considering SDGs as financing tools.
A blurry picture is room for misunderstandings, greenwashing, and multiple risks (reputation, litigation, market). Lack of comparability hampers market efficiency. Maruta pointed to emerging improvements – notably from the European Union – involving international cooperation at the level of the International Platform on Sustainable Finance and the G20.
The lecture featured concrete examples and spontaneous interventions from the audience. Such hands-on interactive approach helped the students understand the relevance of sustainable finance and stimulated their curiosity.
The excerpts of comments from the student attendees are as follows.
- Nitin Kant
And I am looking forward to more such lectures.
- Lu Tinghuan
- Gautam Wadhwa
- Goh Lee Xin
- Cheah Yu Ern (SUCCEED)
This area would grow soon, and it will prosper, and grow incredibly vital for the stability of human wellbeing. Persistence in the area is much appreciated. Mr. Maruta has aspired me to follow this path and explore it more profoundly in this field. I would like to post a question to Mr. Maruta, does the credibility system really work to distinguish between the green companies and “black companies”, and how could we strengthen the system to increase its reliability?