In 2021, the Belgian association Grootouders voor het Klimaat (Grandparents for the Climate) won the EESC Civil Society Prize, which was focused on the theme of climate action, for their campaign entitled Our Savings for their Future. The campaign was aimed at encouraging some 2.4 million Belgian grandparents to redirect their savings – estimated at the time to amount to around EUR 910 billion in assets – to more sustainable projects. EESC info spoke with co-chair of Grootouders voor het Klimaat Hugo Van Dienderen about the current situation regarding climate and sustainable finance, and their expectations and plans for the future.

Three years on, are you seeing tangible results from your campaign? How would you generally assess the current situation regarding climate and sustainable finance in Belgium – has there been progress, and are people becoming more aware of the importance of this?

The EESC prize gave us important recognition and support. We have often referred to it in contacts with the government, other support organisations and our fellow citizens. It has helped us to make more contacts and develop our campaign further, in relation to both our fellow grandparents and the younger generations, with the development of presentations, workshops and a series of lectures on sustainable finance.

We realised that while this is still not a straightforward topic, major legislative efforts have been made in Europe (the taxonomy, the Green Deal, the CSRD, the CSDDD, etc.), which means that companies and sectors are now also taking more and more initiatives to which we can refer. This is a source of hope and very much needed, as the (inadequate) outcome of the COP in Baku has highlighted again unfortunately.

We learned from a recent study that our work in raising awareness is still very much needed. Only 5-15% of investors make use of their right to ask their financial institutions to take into account their sustainable preferences. We must therefore continue to work on this.

What do you expect from COP29? Are you participating in the conference, if not directly, then by supporting the 12-year-old boy Ferre and his grandparents? Do you think that climate finance is a crucial issue in a just transition?

At the time of writing, COP29 has just finished. From the outset, we gave our full support, in financial and communication terms, to the 12-year-old Ferre, who took the trip to Baku with his grandparents, who are members of Grootouders voor het Klimaat, to ensure that the voice of children continues to be heard. We would also like to thank all the fellow grandparents and authorities that made this possible.

COP29 had to be the climate finance COP because funding is indeed crucial for the just transition. Unfortunately, in Baku, this was insufficiently in evidence. Our message remains: the money is there, and we ask those who have it to step up to the mark and use it sustainably for the future of our grandchildren.

What are the latest projects of Grootouders voor het Klimaat that you would like to mention? Are there any new projects in the pipeline?

We continue to be hopeful about the future. For Grootouders voor het Klimaat, 2025 – ten years on from the Paris Agreement – will be the year in which we call on large numbers of our fellow grandparents, who are members of the big senior citizen organisations in Flanders. We are in the midst of preparations whereby several dozen ‘grandparents for the climate’ are being trained to engage in climate discussions with confidence, and to be ready to reach out and to listen.

We have developed a series of workshops, including one on sustainable saving and investing, which we offer free of charge to all local branches of the senior citizen organisations. We are already witnessing a lot of enthusiasm. At the end of November 2025, we will be hosting a major final event, which – we hope – will not be an end but rather the start of a growing commitment for the future.

Hugo Van Dienderen is co-founder and co-chair of ‘Grootouders voor het Klimaat’. Founded in 2019, ‘Grootouders voor het Klimaat’ is an independent movement of older people, mainly grandparents, who want to pass on a liveable world to future generations. It is a member of the European Grandparents for Climate Association. 

In the photo: Ferre with his ‘grandparents for the climate’ at COP29 in Baku. Ferre had the opportunity to express his concerns about the climate crisis to many key people.