Name: Interview with the 'Brainwaves' winner: Silver Linings competition
Start: 2021-07-06T13:00:00Z
End: 2021-07-06T13:28:40.000Z
Location: BrightTALK
Rating: 0

From the publishers of responsible-investor.com, the RI Webinars channel focuses on responsible investing, ESG and sustainable finance for institutional investors and companies. We also produce a number of industry leading in-person events including: RI Europe, RI Canada, RI USA, RI Japan and RI Asia.

The proliferation of net zero commitments by financial institutions over the past two years has created a unique data collection challenge. With the first interim targets fast approaching, do investors have the data they need to deliver on their pledges?

In this webinar, a panel of experts convened by Responsible Investor will discuss key areas including:
- Where are the main hurdles in data collection and what are firms doing to overcome them?
- How do net zero data and disclosure requirements fit with those imposed by regulators?
- What does the industry-wide nature of the net zero project mean for data collection?

Net zero: Data collection challenges and solutions

The onrush of new sustainability disclosure standards and regulation in major markets suggest that more raw data than ever before will soon be as accessible. This session will explore how attention will shift to focus on providers that can identify future data gaps/holes and leverage AI to solve them. It will also consider what new regulations could be on the horizon, and how the industry will respond to the developments.

How will regulation shift the ESG data industry?

As companies respond to demand for sustainable business practice, there’s been a steady rise in net zero target setting. Yet there is no standardization in how these targets are set - making it hard for investors to assess their credibility.

In this webinar, in partnership with ICE, our expert panel will address net zero challenges, and discuss how tools and datasets can help.


Topics:
- How are companies setting net-zero targets and strategies to achieve net zero?
- How can a company’s net zero plan and targets be analysed?
- What roles do tools and data play in making net zero analysis more efficient? 
- What is the role of regulations like the SFDR and EU Taxonomy in supporting net zero implementation?

Speakers:

Girish Narula
Head of Climate Transition Finance
ICE

Annie Chor Joyce
Head of ESG
Amundi US

Moderated by Mina Tümay, Assistant Editor, PEI Media

Net-zero in practice: analysing and implementing net zero

An average of US$711bn per year until 2030 is needed to finance global biodiversity conservation projects. Nature-based Solutions will be crucial to reversing the decline in biodiversity and nature.

Over 80% of investments in NbS are from the public and philanthropic funders. However, these financial flows alone cannot meet the current investment need. A report published by South Pole and WWF, through the Climate Solutions Partnership, highlights common success factors that have been key in the design of nature-based solutions to secured commercial investment.

While private and institutional investors are showing interest in the opportunities that NbS represent, investments remain limited due to a lack of bankable opportunities. Reflecting post-UN Climate Conference COP27, and in the run-up to UN Biodiversity Conference COP15, it is increasingly important that we leverage lessons learnt from solutions already achieving positive biodiversity, human wellbeing outcomes, and financial returns to build a robust pipeline of NbS investments.

In this event, a panel comprised of the report writers, an investor, and a representative from a NbS project that has attracted private capital will discuss perspectives on the importance of the success factors outlined in the report by providing real-world examples and experiences. 

Speakers:

Gaetan Hinojosa, Associate Director, Climate Policy, Finance and Carbon Markets Advisory at South Pole
William Baldwin-Cantello, Director of NbS at WWF UK
Megan Reilly Cayten, Senior Investment Manager at Climate Asset Management
Nicolas Pascal, Executive Director & Co-Founder of Blue Finance


Moderated by Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker, Editor, Responsible Investor

Success factors for attracting investment for critical Nature-based Solutions

Nature works for us – for free. Without nature, the global economy could not function and reaching net-zero emissions would be impossible. The production of everything from food and clothing to medicines and computer chips depends on natural resources in one way or another. At the same time, forests, mangroves, wetlands and other natural ecosystems remove carbon from the atmosphere and remain critical to the development of high-quality credits for offsetting emissions. 

Nature is becoming a priority area for the investment community. But there is still much uncertainty about how nature-based investing works in practice. How are investors confronting and accounting for nature-related risks in their portfolios? How can they measure the impact of their investments on nature? How can they make investment sense of the multi-faceted aspects of preserving biodiversity? How could the TNFD framework help investors and stakeholders address the looming loss of biodiversity? And with COP15 in Montreal just around the corner, what are some of the key developments to expect?  

In this webinar, we look at why biodiversity warrants investor attention, the key challenges for investors to tackle the biodiversity crisis and examine emerging initiatives and tools that can help the financial community rise to the challenge.

Speakers:
- Vian Sharif, Founder of NatureAlpha
- Alexis Gazzo, Europe West Sustainability Co-Leader at EY
- Liudmila Strakodonskaya, ESG Analyst, Biodiversity Lead, AXA Investment Managers
- Arne Klug, Director of Biodiversity Research at MSCI

Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor at Responsible Investor

Nature-Based Investing: The Role of Biodiversity and Nature Capital

The world is seeing a rise in the collective commitment to net zero, and financial institutions worldwide are faced with a growing list of sustainability disclosure requirements from regulators. At the same time, public opinion is watching them and is expecting more ambitious and clear plans to act on their pledges and commitments.

All members of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) from all sectors across the financial industry have committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, while providing transparent reporting and accounting on progress towards interim targets along the way.

With heightened pressure from society and regulators, financial institutions are only missing one big part of it: accurate and reliable data to plan, track and execute toward a truly sustainable economy.

In this webinar in partnership with Clarity AI, our expert panel will address the challenges investors face on the road to net zero, discussing the obstacles surrounding access to accurate and reliable data as well as providing insight into navigating the regulations.


Some topics that will be covered during the webinar:

•     What is the main blocker in the race to net zero? 
•     How feasible is it to achieve a net zero economy by 2050? What else is needed besides net zero alliances and actionable data?
•     Why is it so hard to get Scope 3 data and why has it been overlooked for so long?
•     How can financial institutions assess the suitability of a data provider? What should they look out for?
•     Are regulations really helping in taking the right steps towards decarbonization, or are they getting in the way of effective planning and execution of net zero strategies?

Speakers:
Julien Grolée, Investor Practices Programme Manager, IIGCC
Patricia Pina, Head of Product Research & Innovation, Clarity AI
Daisy Streatfeild, Sustainability Director, Ninety One


Moderated by Mina Tümay, Assistant Editor, PEI Media

Net Zero: Sourcing Reliable Data to Accelerate Progress

Climate risk was long characterised as a ‘Black Swan’: distant, improbable and intangible. Increasingly, it is now seen as a ‘Grey Rhino’: obvious, dangerous and probable. Recent heatwaves, floods and drought around the world have raised the stakes in public consciousness. For investors, in an ever-changing ESG landscape, climate risk is increasingly seen as a fundamental bedrock of measurability. And the stakes are indeed high. According to S&P Global Sustainable1 analysis, 92 percent of the world’s largest companies have at least one asset at high exposure (score >75 out of 100) to a climate change physical hazard by the 2050s, rising to 98 percent by the 2090s under a Business-as-Usual scenario. So, are investors making changes fast enough? In this webinar, we will explore best practices with climate physical risk analysis, including:

- What climate science says and why climate physical risk is material to investors;
- How data intelligence is developing to manage physical climate risk across multi-asset portfolios; 
- What industry leaders are doing and how to learn for it;
- What quantifying climate physical risk in financial term requires; and
- How data can be used for reporting, screening, risk analytics, and everyday decision making

Speakers:
- Therese Feng, Vice President of Research at S&P Global Sustainable1
- Chris Goolgasian, Director of Climate Research at Wellington Management
- Tim Hall, Senior Scientist, The Climate Service, an S&P Global Company

Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor at Responsible Investor

Spotting the Grey Rhino: Climate perils and opportunities for investors

Impact investing aims to identify innovative companies whose core products and services address major social and environmental challenges. Many developing countries have large-scale social and environmental needs that are unmet by government spending alone, but paradoxically, however, less than a third of impact capital is allocated to funds that focus on emerging markets, according to the International Finance Corporation. In this webinar, sponsored by Wellington Management, we look at opportunities available in emerging markets for impact investors, with a focus on perspectives from end users in their local communities, as well as the research process for evaluating and measuring impact investments through a strong Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) practice.

 
Join this discussion with Portfolio Manager, Liliana Castillo Dearth, and Impact Measurement and Management Practice leader, Oyin Oduya.

Impact in Emerging Markets: Grassroots research and IMM Practice

In this session our panel of ESG experts will explore key circular economy concepts and principles and how investment professionals can consider circularity in their investment decision-making process. The panel will also provide concrete examples of how investors can incorporate circularity in company-level ESG analyses across different industries.

Integrating Circular Economy Concepts into the Investment Process

Amid multiple global crises, ranging from covid, to climate change, to the war in Ukraine, the UN recently warned that progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is ‘in jeopardy’. Urgent solutions are required to direct global financial flows towards investments that tackle poverty, improve health, strengthen education, and protect the environment. In this webinar, sponsored by NASDAQ, we will explore the role of sustainable bonds – sometimes presented as ‘SDG bonds’ – in mobilising private capital to tackle the world’s most pressing development challenges. 

Join our discussion to learn more about how sustainable bonds can help impact-focused investors achieve alignment with the SDGs, and how the challenges in catalysing investor interest can be overcome.

Speakers:
- Ann-Charlotte Eliasson, Head of European Debt Listings and Sustainable Bonds at NASDAQ
- Fabienne Michaux, Director of UNDP SDG Impact 
- David Uzsoki, Senior Advisor & Lead for Sustainable Finance at the International Institute for Sustainable Development

Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor at Responsible Investor

The role of sustainable bonds in reaching the SDGs

The ESG and Impact universe has proliferated in recent years. As asset owners increasingly commit to reaching net zero emissions and contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, managers have raced to provide investment products that offer ‘ESG’ or ‘Impact’. In practice, however, these terms are often vaguely defined and poorly understood. Moreover, measuring impact remains a key challenge. With asset owners becoming more sophisticated in their approach, the time has come for investors to have access to tools that allow them to ensure that their specific social and environmental priorities and values are reflected in the construction of their portfolios. Join our discussion to learn more about how investors can navigate the complex Impact landscape.

Speakers:

Max Shillalies, Senior Business Developer, Clarity AI
Ángel Agudo, VP of Product, Clarity AI
Justin Rockefeller, Head of Impact, Addepar

Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor, Responsible Investor

Achieving Values Alignment in ESG and Impact Strategies

Regulators across all markets are increasingly requiring companies, including financial institutions, to provide timely, comprehensive, and comparable climate-related risk reporting. Asset owners, asset managers and civil society organizations have advocated for greater transparency, and voluntary market-led initiatives like those of the TCFD and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) have helped to improve transparency and climate-related risks disclosures. Regulators in the EU, US, UK, and the APAC region are well on their way to developing climate-related reporting requirements and the formation of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is expected to improve the availability of a key set of metrics across geographies. Join our discussion to learn more about how investors can navigate the sea of existing and emerging climate disclosure regulations globally.

Speakers:
Viola Lutz, Head of Climate Solutions, ISS ESG
Venetia Bell, Head of Strategy and Group Chief Sustainability Officer, GIB Asset Management
Curtis Ravenel, Senior Advisor to the Co-Chair & Vice-Chair, GFANZ
Sam Prestidge, Strategy and Policy Adviser, IFRS


Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor, Responsible Investor

Climate Disclosure Regulation: What to Expect in 2022 and Beyond

Despite the urgency of addressing climate change, there is a significant gap in the investment needed to develop the green economy. Channelling more capital towards the low carbon transition, meeting new regulatory requirements of green taxonomies, and capturing green thematic investment opportunities requires better and more granular data on the green economy.

This upcoming webinar discusses key trends and insights in the global green economy based on the FTSE Russell Green Revenues data – a unique source providing granular, bottom-up information on corporate revenues from green products and services. As the green economy gathers pace and taxonomy regulations come into force, investors increasingly view the green economy as a broad thematic investment opportunity rather than a purely specialist niche.

 

In this webinar, our team of experts will discuss:

The size of the investment opportunity provided by the green economy and its future growth
Industries that are going green
The global story – which geographies have the greatest exposure?
Thinking across the whole value chain
Performance of the green economy
Speakers:

Lee Clements, Head of Sustainable Investment Solutions Research, FTSE Russell
Lily Dai, Senior Research Lead, Green Economy, FTSE Russell

Moderated by Ben Payton, Special Projects Editor, Responsible Investor

The green economy: regulatory requirement or investment opportunity?

Asset managers are under increasing pressure to set net zero targets and many who have already set targets are not sure how to achieve them. In this webinar experts from Carbon Intelligence will discuss how to select the right net zero commitment for your firm and offer recommendations for navigating the key questions when defining your net zero target such as: what percentage of AUM should be included within your initial target, how you can best address data quality and coverage issues and typical  implications for portfolios once targets are set. You will come away with tips on where to start, the options available and key considerations for preparing the business case.

Carbon Intelligence experts Caroline Clarke and Vanessa Sheehan will share advice and talk to Ashish Ray and Andrew Mortimer from Jupiter Asset Management about their experience of setting a roadmap for their firm.

Agenda:

-How to choose the right Net Zero commitment for your firm. Selecting your framework and roadmap
-Once chosen, what are the key considerations for defining your Net Zero target?
-How to tackle portfolio emissions and manage your data
-Alignment across the firm. Ensuring operational management and investment teams are pulling in the same direction
-Implications of setting your target

Featuring:

-Vanessa Sheehan, Principal Consultant, Carbon Intelligence
-Ashish Ray, Head of Stewardship, Jupiter Asset Management
-Andrew Mortimer, ESG Investment Director, Jupiter Asset Management

Moderated by Caroline Clarke, Commercial Director of Financial Services, Carbon Intelligence

Presented by Mina Tümay, Assistant Editor, PEI Media

Net Zero for Asset Managers: An Actionable Roadmap

There is a new wave of ESG products sweeping the financial markets. But with increased opportunities, comes increased scrutiny. For example, ESG linked loans – which rewards borrowers for meeting sustainability targets – have seen issuance skyrocket. According to research from Bank of America, H1 2021 saw $350 billion of issuance, far in excess of the $200 billion achieved for the whole of 2020, the previous busiest year. How is the market responding to this fast moving area? How can the debt market achieve meaningful, measurable change? Where is the future leading us, who is leading the charge, and with what products?

In this webinar, with market leaders in ESG, we explore the critical issues for ESG and the growing popularity of debt that rewards borrowers for meeting ESG targets. Topics to be covered include:

• What are the critical opportunities and challenges of new frontiers for ESG products?
• ESG green and purpose washing – the problems, the answers. How to ensure integrity of analysis and reporting?
• Post COP26, carbon footprinting is front of mind and a common KPI. But what else is out there?
• SLL 101. Who provides the loans to what types of borrowers? What’s a typical ESG target for a loan? What data is employed to measure ESG progress?
• The challenges ahead: How to ensure ESG targets have sufficient incentives and disincentives to make a meaningful impact and avoid accusations of greenwashing?
• Ensuring best practice: How can ESG-linked products be benchmarked to ensure they are meeting rigorous standards? How can we be sure that the data collected is trustworthy?
• Could these products power the impact investment market to new heights? Who is leading the charge?

Featuring: 
Joshua Brunert, Global Head of ESG Product – Apex Group
Yoshiko Saito, Global Head of ESG & Impact, Alternatives Specialists - DWS
Vincent Lemaitre, Head of ESG for Private Debt, Tikehau Capital

Moderated by Mina Tümay, Assistant Editor – , PEI Media

ESG linked debt, challenges and opportunities in sustainable finance

ESG incorporation in sovereign debt is beginning to gather momentum, but many sovereign investors are still struggling to acquire robust data – and to use it effectively when they do.

Among the many challenges investors face: open-source datasets, and commercial solutions that translate them into scores, tend to be exceptionally slow-moving; credit ratings only integrate concerns that agencies believe pose a near-term downside risk; concern around issuer influence remains; and beyond physical and transition risks, as well as minimum reporting requirements imposed in new regulations, there is little consensus on which ESG issues should be measured in the first place.

In this context, there is an urgent need for new standards that allow asset owners and managers to align on the issues that matter most to them, as well as new solutions that enable investors to price sovereign sustainability properly, protecting returns and incentivising governments to improve.

The panellists will be debating:

-How is the sovereign ESG data landscape evolving to meet the needs of the industry, and how should it evolve in the future?
-What is the current state of ESG incorporation in practice and as a driver of market pricing?
-What else needs to happen for sovereign ESG investors to drive positive change and play their part in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss?
-How can investors move forward on contested issues like social risk, where disagreement between key stakeholders has not only persisted but deepened?

Featuring:

David Wille – Principal Analyst, Markets, Verisk Maplecroft
Lupin Rahman – Head of Sovereign Credit Emerging Markets and Sovereign ESG Integration, PIMCO
Marcus Svedberg – Investment Strategist, Fjärde AP-fonden (AP4)

Moderator: James Lockhart Smith – VP, Head of Markets, Verisk Maplecroft

Presented by: Mina Tümay – Assistant Editor, Special Projects, PEI Media

Redefining Sovereign ESG – does sovereign ESG need a new standard?

Sustainable investing (SI) fund labels have gained significant prominence in recent years as tools to provide transparency and drive capital towards the sustainability transition. Belgium’s Towards Sustainability label, Germany and France’s SRI and Greenfin labels are just some examples from a long list that continues to proliferate. At the same time, the labels form a highly divergent and fragmented landscape, potentially causing major drawbacks for both investors and the SI agenda at large. 

A recent publication by Qontigo’s sustainable investment team examines the criteria used in the 12 most important frameworks setting standards for SI products in Europe, where most of the effort has been concentrated to date. The study provides a like-for-like comparison of exclusionary criteria and portfolio-construction techniques as applied in each individual label.

On February 24, 2022, we are bringing together a panel representing regulatory and standard-setting authorities and investment management experts to discuss the following topics:

-What are the existing labels’ aims? Which criteria are aligned with each other and where do they diverge?
-Is it feasible to design a financial product that aligns with all labels? What are the implications for the scalability of SI products?
-What are the pros and cons of attempting to limit the number of labels to the bare minimum through standardization, as opposed to encouraging divergence on the grounds that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to SI?
-What does this all mean for the ultimate goal of transitioning to a more sustainable economy?

Featuring: 

Markus Zellmann
Regulatory Advisor/Senior Vice President, Deutsche Börse Group

Tom Van den Berghe
Director Sustainable Finance, Febelfin

Nicolas Redon
Green Finance Expert, Novethic

Moderated by:
Anna Georgieva
Associate Principal, Sustainable Investment, Qontigo

ESG fund labelling: ‘friend or foe’ of the sustainability transition?

In recent years, the money invested in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds has increased exponentially. As banks and investors pivot towards ESG, companies are, in turn, increasing their focus on best practice in the sustainable debt markets. Increasingly reliable data and more sophisticated analytics tools are helping to fuel this trend as financiers step up their benchmarking activities in the bond and loan markets. With new challenges and opportunities in sustainable finance occurring because of commitments and pledges from COP26, lenders and investors from major financial institutions will play a pivotal role.

Growth in ESG assets shows no signs of abating, and as more investors use ESG criteria to drive decisions, are you ready to take action in 2022?

Featuring:
Noel Hughes - Partner - Finance, Vinson & Elkins 
Caitlin Snelson - Senior Associate Finance, Vinson & Elkins 
Michaela Seimen - Executive Director, Sustainable Debt Strategist, UBS
Will Prentis, Investment Analyst, Wellington Management

Moderated by Tony Hay, Joint Managing Director, Responsible Investor

2022 Sustainable Finance Outlook: Investors have been driving change, now what?

Interview with the 'Brainwaves' winner: Silver Linings competition

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Interview with the 'Brainwaves' winner: Silver Linings competition

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