Towards Sustainability welcomes two new members to its Board of Directors

The Towards Sustainability Labelling Agency (CLA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Christel Dumas and Vincent de Brouwer to its Board of Directors. Their extensive expertise and knowledge in sustainable finance will be a tremendous asset in shaping the label’s strategic direction. Christel and Vincent will sit on the board as independent directors.

Christel currently teaches Finance at ICHEC Brussels Management School and holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Ghent University. Her research activities focus on sustainable finance, impact investing and the integration of ESG concerns into the financial practices of institutional investors. Christel is currently a member of the Advisory Board of several financial institutions and sits in the Supervisory Board of Impact Finance Belgium.

Christel Dumas: “I am honoured to join the Board of the Towards Sustainability label, a pioneering initiative that has had a tremendous impact on the sustainable investment market in Belgium and beyond. The label has been instrumental in driving transparency, integrity, and best practices in sustainable finance. As a board member, I look forward to contributing to the label’s continued evolution, ensuring it keeps pace with the constantly changing sustainability landscape. Together, we will work to make the Towards Sustainability label an even more impactful force in promoting financial products that deliver tangible environmental and social benefits. I believe in a wide variety of future potential for the label, in terms of international collaborations, retail education, or supporting innovative sustainable products, and the pivotal role it will play in accelerating the transition to a more sustainable economy."

Vincent has an engineering background and brings a rich experience in banking, environmental protection, development cooperation and impact finance, with a focus on building bridges between sectors that do not otherwise easily talk to each other. He has always been driven by the conviction that finance is a major lever to spearhead societal change. Until June 2024, Vincent was country manager for LITA.co, a crowdfunding platform that is exclusively dedicated to companies with a high environmental or societal value.

Vincent de Brouwer: “I am incredibly pleased to join the Board of the Towards Sustainability label. Over the last decades, maximising financial returns has become the purpose of most economic activity, while social, environmental, and societal matters are considered as constraints. Today, the multifaceted crisis facing the world has created a well-rooted momentum that challenges this approach. The economy is called on to serve society at large again, and finance to become a tool to serve such economy. Sustainability is becoming the new norm. The Towards Sustainability label is instrumental in achieving this ambition. In view of the paramount importance of finance in this evolution, I wish to contribute to further increasing the transformational impact of the label.”

The Board of Directors currently consists of six members from outside the financial sector, e.g. academia and civil society, and five members from the financial sector. The Board is responsible for supervising the CLA, updating the Quality Standard and awarding the label.