ABOUT US

The Tagus Roundtable exists to support promising sustainable finance concepts and teams by providing a forum for constructive feedback, networking and visibility. Each year, the members of the Roundtable select thematic areas and work together to source up to two concepts for invitation to Lisbon. Concepts can run the gamut from new impact funds to blended finance structures and sustainability linked financial products.

 

The 2025 Tagus theme is TO BE DETERMINED.

 

If you wish to nominate or submit a Concept for consideration, please find the details and selection criteria in the CONCEPT SUBMISSION page. Submissions are open until March 29th, 2025.

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What Happens in Lisbon?

 

While in Lisbon, we hope to strike the right balance between high-level conceptual discussions and the tactical, action-oriented workshopping of ideas in a confidential setting. At its core, the Tagus Roundtable is intended to foster supportive networks around selected concepts to accelerate their development and launch. Our secret sauce will be open, frank, collaborative dialogue and time spent together breaking bread and sharing experiences. These elements  have always been the key to  durable professional and personal connections.

 

The Roundtable is a 2-day event. Each day will focus on a different Concept. Sessions will be used for Concept presentation followed by moderated feedback and strategy sessions. The aim of the convening  is not to listen to each other deliver speeches, but rather to workshop ideas and foster a collaborative dialogue among the group. Thus, moderators will help spur our thinking by raising issues, sharing questions, and identifying promising ideas, but we will rely on all participants to engage in the discussion throughout each session. Chatham House Rules will be in effect throughout the convening, but notes will be taken to capture key ideas and proposals for next steps.

 

Daily sessions will finish with sufficient time given over to Lisbon exploration. There will also be a Tagus Roundtable dinner each evening, including the now traditional Winemaker dinner on the final night. Each year we will be joined by a different local winemaker with a collection of wines for tasting and discussion. A nice break from the topics at hand and an opportunity to connect to our host country.

 

At the inaugural event on the banks of the Tagus River, we reflected on how our modern world with all its advances in knowledge and technology and all its deep foibles arguably began with embarkations on that very same waterway. Those early explorers may not have known exactly what was to come or what awaited them, but they did have a sense of purpose. They intended to refashion the world, to make it different from all that came before. We are at a similar moment when it comes to the climate crisis and hopefully our modest embarkation could contribute to a future that is safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.

 

As the great Portuguese chronicler of the Age of Exploration – Luís Vaz de Camões – once wrote:

 

“Jamais haverá anos novos, se continuar a repetir os mesmos erros dos anos velhos”

[“There will never be new years, if the same mistakes of the old years continue to be repeated”]