This question was explored in a highly engaging workshop organised by The Finance Innovation Lab last week. The day started off with an introduction by Chris Hewett, Fellow of The Finance Innovation Lab and Associate at Green Alliance, who explained his work of mapping the disruptive policy thinking towards a sustainable finance system. He also presented the five proposed areas of policy reform that flow from the mapping exercise, which are: banking reform, promoting diversity and innovation in finance, increasing transparency, rewarding long term/responsible investment practices, and accounting for long term value.  In the afternoon sessions the discussions in each group focused on one of these topics.

One of the discussions recognized the governance issues associated with innovating in the financial space and therefore focused around the bold goal of creating an environment in which responsible financial innovation can flourish. The group saw the development of such an environment to be greatly facilitated by the creation of a series of groups governed by a decision making council that agrees the criteria by which innovative ideas will be judged. This should be an open, web-based platform and its members should include the Treasury, the FSA, non-executives, BIS, and various functional expertise such as technology, law, accounting, etc.

This will lead to an interdisciplinary group who is in a position to discuss innovative finance ideas from a range of

This and the other ideas were then put through a reality check by pitching it to policy representatives Jill Rutter, Institute of Government and Ben Caldecott, Head of Policy, Climate Change Capital, which provided practical insights useful for further refinement.different angles – relating nicely to the thinking technique Six Thinking Hats that inspired us in the naming of 6heads.