Multi-faith network + a new centre of excellence in faith-consistent investing to be launched following Paris forum

Press release: 19 April 2026: A multi-faith network of faith-based investors has been created and a Centre of Excellence in faith-consistent investing will be established after leading faith groups met in Paris to discuss how to achieve greater impact with their investments. 

Participants at the inaugural Faith in the Common Good forum unanimously agreed these initiatives were needed to build a powerful new alliance of values-driven investors.

The forum, held at the College des Bernardins in Paris on Thursday April 16 and Friday 17 brought together 33 faith traditions and faith networks from four major religions, which collectively manage at least $200 billion in assets under management (AUM).

This was the first multi-faith event to specifically focus on how faith-based investors can work together to address critical environmental and social challenges.

Participants in the invitation-only event came from leading practitioners in faith-consistent investing, mostly from Europe and the United States, but also including representatives from Indonesia and India.

It was organised by UK-based nonprofit FaithInvest and the Collège des Bernardins. Also attending were CCLA Investment Management, the event's Launch Patron, and launch sponsors Amundi, Federated Hermes Limited, Anthos Fund & Asset Management and Ascension Investment Management, LLC.  

Participants unanimously agreed that deeper coordination among faith-based investors was needed, and expressed real interest in developing shared investment approaches or vehicles. However, they also recognised that more needed to be done to build the ecosystem to support faith based investors. 

Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, President of the Collège des Bernardins, said the absence of a supportive ecosystem was a significant gap. "I also happen to chair what we call the Vatican Bank in the Vatican. When we invest as a Catholic investor, one of the things that we miss the most is the absence of an ecosystem. There is no Catholic financial ecosystem. In fact, there is no Christian financial ecosystem,” he said.

"And what struck me in the room was to hear our brother Muslims, and also of brothers from the Jewish tradition, telling us that they feel a little bit the same.

"So fundamentally, this notion of creating an ecosystem for faith investment is extremely important to allow faiths to align their investment decisions to the faith that they proclaim.

"Behind all of this is the start of building a significant alliance of value-driven, faith-based investors, coordinating action at scale for the common good through financial markets,” he added.

Good intentions

The world's religions hold trillions of dollars on the global markets and have been described as the 'third-largest economic power on Earth'. Yet new research from FaithInvest, launched at the Forum, shows that many faith groups need more support to enable them to invest in line with their values, said FaithInvest’s Executive Chair Dave Zellner.

“Our Good Intentions 2026 study assessed 275 faith-based investment policies and while many faith-based organisations demonstrate a clear commitment to investing in line with their values, most fall into “a ‘basic effort’ tier when it comes to their investment policies”, he said. 

"Across the dataset, policies are generally more developed in avoiding harm than in proactively deploying capital toward mission-aligned outcomes – yet positive impact is what faiths tell us they want to achieve with their investments."

The Good Intentions study also found it was hard for smaller faith-based organisations to implement faith-consistent investing without access to support from larger institutions or networks with specialised investment expertise.

“That finding underscores the importance of developing the ecosystem to support faith-based investors,” said Dave Zellner.  

“FaithInvest's new Centre of Excellence will gather examples of best practice, share information about investment opportunities aligned with faith values, signpost what’s already available, and enable faith groups to find opportunities to pool their resources to achieve the common good they seek.”

Peter Hugh Smith, Chief Executive of CCLA, the event's Lead Patron, said: “We continue to see increasing interest in faith-consistent investing in the UK. Despite ethical investment being pioneered by faith organisations, the choices for faith investors remain limited.

"With this conference, we see gathering momentum for a movement that has the power to do much good in the world. We wholeheartedly welcome this and stand ready to support our clients to align their investments with their values.”

Join us!

We are very excited about supporting this network to grow and expand over the coming years. If you weren't there but would like to get involved, please contact us at FaithInvest – we'd love to have you on board!