In August 2022, the FAST-Infra Group was born, the fruit of more than a year’s reflection with global stakeholders from the financial sector. The aim is to accelerate the financing of sustainable infrastructure worldwide.
This international initiative, set up as part of the One Planet Summit, filed its articles of association and elected Thierry Déau, CEO and founder of Meridiam, as its chairman. Since then, events have accelerated : a partnership has been set up with the Global Infrastructure Foundation in Basel (GIB), an organisation which aims to promote sustainable and resilient infrastructure. This partnership provides FAST-Infra Group with an arm to set up and manage the FAST-Infra Label, which enables public and private funds to be channelled into infrastructure. GIB is partnering with Bloomberg, which manages the data repository aspects.
At the beginning of 2023, GIB set up an advisory committee to discuss aspects relating to the label: how to award it, on which criteria, using what process. Experts from all over the world applied, and over thirty were selected to contribute their views to the construction of the label. Two meetings have already taken place.
At the same time, discussions take place in order to enable the US initiative, Blue Dot Network (BDN) to seek interoperability between the two systems.
On 22 June 2023, at the invitation of President Macron, the New global Financial Pact Summit was held in Paris. FAST-Infra Group presented its initiative at the OECD premises with a high-level panel comprising Amélie de Montchalin (French Rep to OECD), Nandita Parshad (EIB), Lida Fitts (US Department of the Treasury) Vivian Nicoli (Deputy Director Caisse des Dépôts Québec – CDPQ) Christophe Dossarps (Source) and Daniel Wiener, Chairman of GIB. The panel was moderated by T. Déau and over a hundred participants attended.
Following this event, FIG held its first general meeting at Meridiam’s offices in Paris, in the presence of representatives from HSBC, the French Treasury, Swiss Re, GIB, etc. The association’s head office was moved to 4 place de l’Opera and Francois Bergère was selected as CEO.
In October, FIG’s chairman T. Déau, signed an MoU with Source, a platform that collects infrastructure data and enables projects to organise the various stages of construction.
At the beginning of October, during the Paris Infraweek, several meetings are organised in Paris to encourage different countries to speed up the financing of infrastructure by joining FIG. The FAST-Infra Platform is being structured with the help of F. Barthelemy a serial entrepreneur in the field of financial platforms.
December 2023: FIG presents the development of the FAST infra label at several face-to-face panels and events at COP 28 in Dubai.
