“If there’s an acronym in the disclosure space, I usually was involved,” quipped Curtis Ravenel at the recent GreenFin conference in New York. Curtis is Senior Advisor for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, and Member of the Secretariat for the FSB Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, or TCFD. In an interview for this episode of the ESG Insider podcast following the conference, Curtis discusses the convergence happening among the alphabet soup of sustainabilit...
Jul 15, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 30
In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast we bring you highlights from the GreenFin conference, which convened stakeholders from across the green finance ecosystem. The evolution of ESG data was a big topic at the event and in our interviews with attendees. We talk with Manulife Global Chief Sustainability Officer Sarah Chapman; Nasdaq Global Head of Sustainability Evan Harvey; and Joel Makower, who is chairman and co-founder of GreenBiz Group, the media and events company that hosted the event...
Jul 08, 2022•34 min•Season 4Ep. 29
Amid rapid growth in ESG investment, regulators around the world are developing sustainability-focused rules. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we explore new rules proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that involve sustainable or ESG-labeled funds. To get a better understanding, we talk with Aniket Shah, managing director and global head of environmental, social and governance and sustainability research at Jefferies Group. We also speak with George Raine, a partner ...
Jul 01, 2022•34 min•Season 4Ep. 28
The European Commission in May proposed its ‘REPowerEU’ plan to wean the EU off supplies of Russian fossil fuels and accelerate its transition to a low-carbon economy. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we talk with experts about the plan and what it means for investment in renewables. We speak with Elisabetta Cornago, senior research fellow at think tank the Centre for European Reform. We talk to Hans Stegeman, chief investment strategist at asset manager Triodos Investment Management....
Jun 24, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 27
In recent years, we’ve seen an explosion of interest in ESG investing, and private equity firms are part of that growing trend. In this episode of ESG Insider, we sit down with Lisa Hall, Impact Chair at Apollo Global Management. Apollo is one of the largest investing firms in the U.S. and pursues a number of strategies ranging from investment grade debt to private equity. Lisa talks about how ESG is becoming "table stakes" across industries and investment strategies. She also explains how Apoll...
Jun 17, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 26
When it comes to tackling climate change, scientists say making transformative changes to the transportation sector will be key. For example, curbing vehicle transportation emissions will require a rapid scaling up of electric vehicle charging infrastructure as well as EV manufacturing. At the same time, companies are grappling with how to ensure the low-carbon transition balances climate goals with social ones. In this episode of ESG Insider, we talk with Hina Baloch, Executive Director for Dat...
Jun 13, 2022•20 min•Season 4Ep. 25
In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we sit down with Jan-Willem Vosmeer, Global Manager of Sustainable Development and Stakeholder Engagement at The Heineken Company. He talks about how the brewer is working with suppliers to reduce emissions, the challenges of working in a water-intensive industry, and how to make agriculture sustainable. But he says Heineken is focused on more than just environmental issues. It seeks to embed sustainability throughout its entire business, including thr...
Jun 03, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 23
Corporates, financial institutions, investors and academics gathered in New York City on May 17 for the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit to discuss topics such as net zero, the energy transition and ESG data challenges. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we bring you highlights from the panel discussions as well as interviews on the sidelines of the event. We hear from Emily Chew, Chief Responsible Investment Officer at Calvert Research and Management, one of the largest responsible i...
May 27, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 22
Around 300 corporates, financial institutions, investors and academics gathered in Paris on May 10 for the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit to discuss topics including net zero, biodiversity, the energy transition and the ESG data challenge. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we sit down on the sidelines of the event with Sagarika Chatterjee, high level champion for climate action and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ. Sagarika talks about the importance of credibl...
May 20, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 21
Stakeholder capitalism — the idea that companies are responsible to a wide range of stakeholders in addition to shareholders — was a big focus at the last iteration of Davos, the annual meeting hosted by the World Economic Forum that brings together global leaders from governments, business and academia in Switzerland. In 2022, Davos is scheduled to take place the week of May 22. Ahead of that event, we’re talking with Bruno Roche, the former Mars Inc. chief economist who founded the Economics o...
May 13, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 20
Human rights problems lurking in supply chains — from child labor and unfair wages to unsafe working conditions — are moving up the ESG agenda for many companies and investors. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we explore how the issue is evolving. One force behind this change is new legislation being rolled out that requires companies to identify, measure and tackle human rights risk related to their business activities. Another is a warming climate, and the way the physical impacts o...
May 06, 2022•22 min•Season 4Ep. 19
Regulation is increasingly shaping the agenda for environmental, social and governance-focused investors. In many parts of the world, regulators are working to bring clarity to an often-confusing ESG market amid an alphabet soup of different voluntary frameworks. The European Banking Authority, which oversees EU banks, is one such regulator. Earlier this year, it said it will ask banks to disclose information on climate risks and their plans to address those risks from 2023. For this episode of ...
Apr 29, 2022•27 min•Season 4Ep. 18
A new report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, charts a challenging but feasible course ahead for many sectors in achieving net zero emissions. The report warns that delayed action could result in significantly worse losses and damages, including trillions of dollars worth of stranded fossil fuel assets. In this Earth Day episode of ESG Insider, we talk with a contributing author to the report, John Bistline. John is Program Manager in the Energy Systems and Cli...
Apr 22, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 17
The world is working to meet ambitious environmental, social and governance targets in the form of the Paris Agreement and the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals. It's clear that banks will play a central role in financing the changes needed to meet these goals. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we talk with Karen Fang, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America, about how one of the largest U.S. banks is approaching sustainability challenges. In the episode, Karen discuss...
Apr 15, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 16
In 2022, the ESG Insider podcast is bringing you a series of interviews with some of the world’s largest asset managers, owners and financial institutions. In this episode, we hear from the largest pension fund in the U.S. — the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS. We speak to Simiso Nzima, managing investment director of global equity at CalPERS. The conversation focused on five vital sustainability topics — executive pay and its link to ESG performance; board diversity; ...
Apr 08, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 15
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently unveiled a long-anticipated climate disclosure rulemaking proposal. The proposed rule, which is now open for comment, would require companies to disclose certain climate-related information ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to expected climate risks to transition plans. In this episode of ESG Insider, we explore the potentially wide-reaching implications for investors, companies and for climate disclosure globally. To help us understand th...
Apr 01, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Pollution, over-fishing, coral bleaching and the impact of climate change — the oceans are clearly in trouble. Over the past decade, many more nature-based projects have gotten the support of green financing mechanisms, such as green bonds, but little of that new money has benefited the ocean economy. To help fix that financing gap between the terrestrial and marine worlds, some banks are experimenting with a new type of financing instrument known as a blue bond. The first such instrument was is...
Mar 28, 2022•21 min•Season 4Ep. 13
In his 2022 letter to CEOs, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink wrote: “Divesting from entire sectors – or simply passing carbon-intensive assets from public markets to private markets – will not get the world to net zero. And BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy.” In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we’re talking to the world’s largest asset manager about its approach to engaging with companies, including those in carbon-intensive sectors. We inte...
Mar 18, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Companies have two options going forward: transform or be transformed, according to a Feb. 28, 2022, report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Companies can either make transformational changes now that will help them be resilient to the physical impacts of climate change in the future, or they can continue to be reactive and wait until climate change forces them to transform at an even greater cost, the IPCC finds. In this episode of ESG Insider, we talk with one ...
Mar 11, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Ahead of International Women’s Day, we’re looking at how the U.K. is moving the needle on gender diversity in corporate boardrooms. Many countries have mandatory quotas for the minimum number of women on corporate boards. The U.K., in contrast, adopted a voluntary approach to improve gender balance in the business world. Has it worked? In one important sense, yes: Nearly 40% of board seats at the U.K.’s top 100 companies are now filled by women, and notable gains have also been made at the board...
Mar 07, 2022•18 min•Season 4Ep. 10
If you listened to our bonus episode of the ESG Insider podcast last week, you know we were on the ground attending GreenBiz, one of the largest sustainability conferences in the U.S. that brought together about 1,300 sustainability professionals. A big theme we heard at the event is that sustainability is accelerating rapidly — and that change is especially pronounced in the evolving landscape for standard-setting bodies and disclosure regulations. At the conference, we sat down with one of tho...
Feb 25, 2022•28 min•Season 4Ep. 9
State Street Global Advisors, the world's third-largest provider of exchange-traded funds, is expecting more action and transparency from companies in 2022 on climate change and social issues – and it wants to use its influence to drive that change. "We view divestment as the last resort," says Karen Wong, who is Global Head of ESG and Sustainable Investing at State Street Global Advisors. "We do believe overall that it's absolutely important to have the voting and engagement in our toolkit to d...
Feb 18, 2022•25 min•Season 4Ep. 7
In this bonus episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we're taking you on the road to the big U.S. sustainability conference GreenBiz22. We sit down with Joel Makower, who is Chairman and Co-Founder of GreenBiz Group, which produces the three-day event bringing together sustainability professionals from many of the largest U.S. companies. The event is an opportunity to take the pulse of the corporate world on topics ranging from net zero to biodiversity to social equity. As Joel tells us in the inte...
Feb 17, 2022•24 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Climate change is driving up insurance-related losses on a global scale even as homeowners, businesses and communities around the world continue to build in hazard-prone areas such as those that experience frequent flooding or storm damage. In this episode of ESG Insider, we examine how one of the world’s largest insurers is tackling rising risks from climate change in an interview with Ernst Rauch, Chief Climate and Geo Scientist and Head of the Climate Solutions Unit at Munich Re. A recent rep...
Feb 11, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 6
In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we explore a key theme emerging at the center of the ESG movement in 2022: That’s the idea that environmental, social and governance factors should not be considered in isolation, but rather should be understood in relation to each other. In the episode we speak to Dr. Richard Mattison, who is President of S&P Global Sustainable1 and a member of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, or TNFD. Richard talks about the need to tie toge...
Feb 04, 2022•15 min•Season 4Ep. 5
At the beginning of January 2022, a key element of the EU’s sustainable finance policy came into effect — the green taxonomy, a kind of dictionary of sustainable activities. Investors must now disclose how their funds meet taxonomy climate-related requirements, while large companies need to report on how much of their business is in line with the taxonomy. But an ongoing debate over whether natural gas and nuclear power should be included in the tool is overshadowing the taxonomy’s introduction....
Jan 28, 2022•26 min•Season 4Ep. 4
In 2021, the world saw many major climate-related disasters ranging from wildfires, to flooding and hurricanes. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, recently released its annual climate trends report, providing an important snapshot of the physical risks from climate change in the U.S. The report also puts a price tag on those risks: U.S. weather and climate-related disasters reached $145 billion in 2021. In this episode of ESG Insider, Climatologist Karin Gleason o...
Jan 21, 2022•19 min•Season 4Ep. 3
The EU proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism in 2021 as part of a broad climate package designed to reduce carbon emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. This mechanism — widely known as ‘CBAM' — would put a tariff on imports of carbon-intensive goods. The proposed regulation aims to prevent EU-based companies from moving production to other jurisdictions with less stringent climate regulation (also known as ‘carbon leakage'). It also aims to avoid imports of carbon-intensive products...
Jan 18, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 2
To welcome the New Year, we hear from experts across the ESG world about what sustainability trends they are watching in 2022. Our guests in this episode of ESG Insider include Curtis Ravenel, who is Secretariat for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and senior adviser to former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. We also talk with the Head of Global Sustainability Research at Morgan Stanley, and the Head of Energy and Environment Transition at French bank BNP Paribas. And...
Jan 07, 2022•29 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In this year’s final episode of ESG Insider, we talk with David Blood about two big sustainability issues impacting the financial sector as we head into 2022: Plugging the climate financing gap, and aligning investment portfolios with Paris Agreement goals. David is a senior partner at Generation Investment Management, the sustainable investment firm he founded with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. David tells us about the strategy behind Just Climate, a new venture Generation Investment Mana...
Dec 21, 2021•32 min•Season 3Ep. 48
