Investors have called for "urgent action" to be taken at COP27 to include gender equality targets within the financial system's climate change commitments, after years of "far too little progress".

In an open letter published today (7 November) ahead of the COP27 summit, investors called for four actions to be made in the public and private sector to enshrine gender equality into climate finance.

Coordinated by GenderSmart along with the Women in Finance Climate Action Group and the 2X Collaborative, the letter has 15 signatories, including Aviva, Generation Investment Management, European Investment Bank and Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM).

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Collectively, they have called for COP27 decision makers to improve women's inclusion within the financial system and ability to access climate finance; integrate gender into public and private climate policy frameworks; develop gender metrics and integrate them into climate finance reporting; and improve gender-balanced representation in decision making roles in climate finance and climate-smart businesses.

Amanda Blanc, group CEO of Aviva, said in the letter: "The COP27 climate talks and the upcoming COP15 biodiversity talks are crucial moments that should enable direct trillions of dollars of capital towards tackling shared global threats."

She added: "Governments, multilateral institutions and private sector organisations all need to consider how this private capital can better incorporate gender concerns in order to ensure that these trillions of dollars needed to meet our climate goals will flow in an equitable way.

"Mobilising climate finance in a way that actively works to address gender inequality will be essential to transform economies and societies to be more equal and resilient in the future."

Suzanne Biegel, co-founder of GenderSmart, added that the "calibre of organisations joining this call to action demonstrates a growing global recognition that gender is a material consideration whether you are looking at women as investors, entrepreneurs, leaders, innovators, customers or suppliers".

She said that organisations "need women's leadership at every level of the climate finance and business value chains".