Europe has spent the past decade building a sophisticated sustainability architecture with targets, taxonomies and disclosure regimes. But a recent roundtable co-hosted by London Business School and Reframe Venture questioned whether the continent has built the financial plumbing to match. The event, held under the Chatham House Rule, brought together investors, operators and public finance institutions to discuss clean energy, resilience and responsible technology.

The main takeaway was a sequence of failures across the financing chain. Europe can fund early-stage inventions but struggles to carry promising companies through growth, deployment and exit. This gap ultimately influences what founders choose to build and which industrial capabilities Europe will retain.

The discussion highlighted how ESG integration in private markets remains fragmented, with limited capital available for the critical scaling phase where climate technologies must prove commercial viability.