and we are doing our bit to achieve that by running today ’ s symposium. what is more, i can well imagine instances where climate - related risks are also raised at supervisory meetings with credit institutions. i am a firm advocate of the idea that supervisors and central banks themselves should strive to perform a special function as a role model and catalyst. this means, for example, helping to forge a deeper understanding of how the mechanisms behind the risks work. it was for this reason that the " network for greening the financial system " was established only a short time ago. this network will serve as a platform for a group of central banks and banking supervisors from around the world to exchange views on climate risks for the financial sector, regulatory issues and green bonds, to name but three topics. whatever supervisors strive to achieve, i believe it is particularly important for us to establish a consistent taxonomy and uniform definitions as the basis for credible standard setting in the area of green finance. klaas knot will tell you more about this in just a few moments. so we're not coy about playing our part as supervisors in the decarbonisation of banks ’ balance sheets. yet there are other demands being placed on banking supervisors and regulators which i am keeping a very close eye on, because i consider them to be dangerous. in the debate surrounding the implementation of the paris climate targets, some have suggested using the prudential framework to actively steer financial flows away from emissions - heavy sectors to more environmentally friendly ones. more specifically, there have been demands recently for banking regulation to include special rules that tip the regulatory scales against environmentally unfriendly " brown " investments or in favour of " green " financial assets on banks ’ balance sheets – via capital requirements, for instance. this has been dubbed the " green supporting factor ". 5 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches however, sustainability in the sense of environmental friendliness does not necessarily go hand in hand with reduced risk – i already mentioned innovation risks earlier on in my speech today. and that is also why capital requirements should be calculated on the basis of just a single factor – the riskiness of the exposures in question. financial market regulation in general and banking supervision in particular need to be focused on their core tasks and remain geared to risk. watering down the regulatory mandate would create conflicts of interest and ultimately lead to risks to financial stability – and surely that cannot be what we want. the european commission today unveils its action plan on sustainable finance.

jens weidmann : welcome remarks at the 3rd imf statistical forum welcome remarks by dr jens weidmann, president of the deutsche bundesbank and chairman of the board of directors of the bank for international settlements, at the 3rd imf statistical forum, frankfurt am main, 19 november 2015. * 1. * * introduction dear mr. zhu, dear otmar issing, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the 3rd imf statistical forum. it is probably safe to say that the bundesbank has seldom had the opportunity to welcome such a large body of international statistics experts. the objective over these two days is to bring together data producers, policy makers, academics and other users to discuss how to further improve the provision of statistics for micro and macroeconomic analyses. for central banks this is of vital importance. monetary policy ultimately depends on the availability of good statistics. the monetary and economic analyses that precede any deliberation on the appropriate monetary policy stance are built on a large amount of data on monetary aggregates, financial market data, inflation expectations or labour market indicators. i am therefore particularly glad that the bundesbank is hosting the first imf statistical forum to be held outside washington. and, when i tell you that the bundesbank is attaching great importance to statistics, i am not merely paying lip service to you. the importance the bundesbank attaches to statistics and statistical methods is shown, for instance, by the fact that carl friedrich gauss, one of the most influential statisticians of all time, was portrayed on the 10 deutsche mark banknote for a long time. building on the work of carl friedrich gauss, statistical methods have been perfected and the process of data collection has been refined again and again. often, the great progress made in the field of statistics has been driven by new demands. if you will, the supply of data and new methods has always responded to changes in demand. governments, for example, have always had a demand for statistics on the wealth of their citizens, as this helped them to collect taxes. in the 17th century, this led sir william petty, an englishman, to count chimneys in order to draw inferences about the wealth of an economy. his works can be seen as the foundation of modern social and economic statistics. but to find examples of how the supply of statistics has responded to demand one does not have to go back as far as the 17th century. in the 1930s, the great depression provided