Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit
29 June 2026
About the Summit
Immediately after London Climate Action Week, we bring the conversation to Oxford for our fourth annual Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit. On Monday 29th June at Rhodes House and its gardens, leading researchers will join practitioners, policymakers, regulators, and civil society organisations to examine the developments, trends, and questions that matter most for the future of sustainable finance and investment.
This year’s Summit is designed around a single main track. The programme will feature keynote addresses, discussions and debates on a deliberately small number of forward-looking, agenda-setting topics, chosen to build on London Climate Action Week and to push us into new territory.
The day concludes with a drinks reception and dinner in the gardens of Rhodes House.
Further session details and speakers will be announced as we get closer to the Summit. You can find details and videos of our three previous summits here: 2022, 2023, 2025.
“Oxford’s sustainable finance centre, founded by sustainable finance expert Ben Caldecott, showed it had lost none of its knack for hospitality at the return of this year’s summit over the past two days.
For…the gossip, the tall tales, the tittle-tattle – well you just had to be there.”
Responsible Investor
Conference Schedule
08:45 – 10:00
Breakfast session: Investing in Nature at Scale: the nature proposition gap and how to close it
This session runs alongside registration. Pre-registration required. Please contact [email protected] to secure a space
Our field has built an extraordinary infrastructure of nature-related frameworks, targets, and reporting guidance, but it has not produced anything like enough investable nature and resilience propositions at a scale that institutional capital can actually back. We need to shift collective effort from producing more complexity to developing a pipeline of specific, place-based, nationally significant nature and resilience propositions around the world, each fully costed, each with a business case that can stand up in front of a finance ministry. How can we do this together? Who should lead the development and costing of a serious pipeline? What institutional vehicles can carry these propositions from concept to investment? And what is the role of governments, civil society, companies, and financial institutions in stress-testing and championing them?
Coming soon…
10:00 – 10:10
Opening Remarks
The development and disclosure of transition plans is increasing globally. The potential of transition plans as a strategic tool to unlock the volumes of finance required is becoming clearer. Recent recommendations and reports across jurisdictions, including Australia, the EU, France, Indonesia, Japan, and the UK, are recognising the power of planning to unlock finance and support growth. This session will explore examples of how transition planning is underpinning efforts to allocate and access finance and how these flows are supporting growth, competitiveness and climate policy goals. It is led by the International Transition Plan Network (ITPN), which brings together governments and regulators on key topics concerning private sector transition plans.
Chair: Kate Levick, Associate Director of Finance & Resilience, E3G
Richard Barker, Board Member, International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), IFRS
Sophie Brodie, Associate Director, Climate, Fidelity International
Jonathan Dunn, Head of Climate, AngloAmerican
Daisy Streatfeild, Sustainability Director, Ninety One
Irem Yerdelen, Deputy Chair, Transition Finance Council
10:10 – 11:20
Session I: Societal Resilience and Silicon Boundaries
East School
Societies, like ecosystems, have conditions they need to function: trust between people, working institutions, broad economic participation, a population healthy enough to engage in civic and economic life. The Silicon Boundaries framework seeks to identify the thresholds at which the scale or nature of AI and related technologies begins to erode these preconditions. The nine categories of silicon boundaries interact and reinforce one another in ways that can produce cascading instability. The categories are: information integrity, social cohesion, political stability, economic participation, physical and mental health, safety and security, financial stability, rights and consent, and environmental sustainability.
Unlike planetary boundaries, thresholds are not fixed. They move depending on governance choices: stronger regulation, better digital literacy, and robust institutions push boundaries outward; institutional weakness, regulatory failure, and technology designed to exploit vulnerabilities bring them closer. The same volume of computing power produces different boundary dynamics depending on how it is used.
The financial implications are direct. If society acts to stay within Silicon Boundaries, capital currently allocated to AI infrastructure may be significantly mispriced. The session will explore:
› Which Silicon Boundaries are most material for capital allocation, and how could they be measured?
› Which sectors, asset classes, and infrastructure categories are most exposed if societies move to stay within them?
› Is the Silicon Bubble thesis credible, and what would constitute the trigger for a repricing event?
› Which governance choices, regulatory, civic, and corporate, would push boundaries outward, and which would bring them closer?
› What is the role of investors, supervisors, and standard-setters in pricing these risks before they crystallise?
Coming soon…
11:20 – 11:45
Keynote: Geopolitics, Conflict and the Future of Energy
South School
Two energy security crises and two bouts of energy-driven inflation inside a five-year window, the first triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the second by the 2026 Iran war, have shown in hard numbers what economies tethered to globally traded fossil fuels actually cost. Households have absorbed it in lower living standards, businesses in lost competitiveness, and the public finances in emergency support schemes, higher public sector wage settlements driven by inflation, and higher debt servicing costs. These shocks have fed populism. But they also look set to accelerate the energy transition. The keynote will explore these issues and what it could mean for geopolitics, capital allocation, regulation, and international cooperation in the years ahead.
Coming soon…
11:45 – 13:00
Session II: Environmental Deterrence and Planetary Security
East School
Public finances are constrained and the environmental crisis is accelerating. Incentives and subsidies alone will not mobilise sufficient capital or change behaviour at the speed required. Targeted, proportionate enforcement, made credible by independent observation, could be cheaper, faster, and fairer for many environmental objectives.
The logic is borrowed from deterrence theory: you do not have to catch everyone to change outcomes. You need credible monitoring and visible follow-through so that the expected cost of violation exceeds the gain. Satellite-led analysis and AI have made this feasible at scale for the first time. In Brazil, satellite monitoring supports predictive enforcement against illegal logging. In New Mexico, earth-observation-enabled auditing has uncovered off-lease drilling on public land and generated significant enforcement revenue. These are not one-offs. They indicate a wider redesign of compliance that protects honest operators, rebuilds fiscal capacity, and delivers environmental outcomes. The session will explore:
› How will the deployment of monitoring-led enforcement reshape outcomes across different themes, sectors, and geographies, and where will the early effects be felt most strongly?
› What governance and political conditions are needed to make credible deterrence work, and how can it be designed to protect honest operators?
› How should financial institutions and insurers price the rising probability of detection and enforcement against polluters and illegal operators?
› What is the role of private capital in supporting the monitoring, verification, and analytical infrastructure that makes deterrence credible?
› How can a coalition of governments, supervisors, investors, and civil society move this from demonstration to standard practice?
Coming soon…
13:00 – 14:30
Lunch
Rhodes House gardens
14:30 – 15:45
Session III: Financing the Agentic Economy, Sustainably
South School
The agentic economy is arriving fast. Autonomous AI agents can plan, decide, transact, and spawn sub-agents to carry out tasks, including those that their principals may never have explicitly authorised. How might the agentic economy develop, and what are the implications for growth and productivity?
Further, autonomous agents themselves will increasingly participate in the financial system, shaping access to capital and financial services. The session will explore:
› How is the agentic economy likely to evolve over the next five to ten years, and what are the most plausible trajectories for its share of global economic activity?
› How quickly is agent-mediated capital allocation displacing human decision-making, and which segments of finance are most exposed first?
› What does the rise of agent-mediated decision-making mean for the existing sustainable finance architecture, and which parts of it are most exposed to becoming ineffective?
› What are the systemic risks of agent-to-agent financial relationships outside regulated infrastructure, where should the regulatory perimeter sit, and what does this mean for central banking and prudential supervision?
› How do we prevent agentic finance from becoming the route through which capital flows back into activities regulated markets are increasingly unwilling to fund?
Coming soon…
15:45 – 16:30
Break
Rhodes House gardens
16:30 – 17:45
Closing debate: “The House believes that sustainable finance is not fit for the age of AI.”
East School
The signature closing format of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit. Previous motions have addressed whether finance sector net zero pledges will have any positive impact on real economy decarbonisation (2022), whether 1.5 degrees is alive thanks to finance (2023), and whether the global ESG backlash is justified (2025). This year the motion forces the room to confront whether the architecture of sustainable finance, built around human decision-making and twentieth-century institutions, can credibly govern an economy in which AI agents allocate capital, write contracts, and shape risk at scale.
Coming soon…
17:45 – 18:00
Closing remarks
Sheldonian Theatre
Chair: Emiliya Mychasuk, Climate Editor, FT
Proposition
Alex Barkawi, Founder and Director, Council on Economic Policies (CEP)
Nicolette Bartlett, Senior Advisor, CDP
Jakob Thomä, Co-founder & Research Director, Theia Finance Labs
Opposition
Kingsmill Bond, Energy Strategist, Ember Futures
Eldrid (Ellie) Herrington, Head of Academic Engagement, Centre for Climate Engagement, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
Anthony Hobley, Deputy Chair, Climate, Risk & Resilience, Howden Group
18:00 – 21:00
Drinks reception and dinner
Rhodes House gardens
Chair: Noah Lachs, Past President of the Oxford Union
Topics
- Geopolitics, populism, and conflict
- The agentic economy and the future of financial decision-making
- Societal resilience and silicon boundaries
- Environmental deterrence and planetary security
- Transition finance and transition planning
- Investing in nature and adaptation at scale
- Public sector reform and public finance resilience
- Heat as an economic and financial risk
“What’s really special about this event, is the blend of the deep research that’s going on here at Oxford, and the practitioner perspective. It’s a really valuable conversation for people like me that are in the thick of it.”
Catherine Howarth OBE, Chief Executive, ShareAction
“The Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit is the moment in the middle of the year to reflect on the state of sustainable finance. I don’t think anything replaces these in-person events…they really allow ideas to settle.”
Jakob Thomä, Co-founder and CEO, Theia Finance Labs
Fees
All tickets include the full day programme, lunch, reception, and dinner. All registrations are pending until confirmed by the organisers. We expect significant demand across several categories and strongly encourage early registration.
PRIVATE SECTOR
£450
For private sector practitioners working in financial institutions, consultancies, service providers, or real economy sectors.
GOVERNMENT, REGULATOR, CIVIL SOCIETY, ASSET OWNER
£275
For those whose primary employment is as civil servants, regulators, civil society practitioners, or asset owners (i.e. pension funds, insurance company general accounts, sovereign wealth funds, or charitable endowments).
ACADEMIC
£200
For researchers with academic or academic-related appointments at universities. Academic places are limited.
Academic Researcher
University of Oxford researchers:
Full ticket £150 | Day ticket £85
This category is for researchers with academic or academic-related appointments at the University of Oxford working on sustainable finance-related topics.
Academic researchers:
Full ticket £375 | Day ticket £250
This category is for researchers with academic or academic-related appointments at universities (excluding Oxford) working on sustainable finance-related topics.
Students
University of Oxford DPhil students:
Day ticket £50
This category is for current DPhil students at the University of Oxford working on sustainable finance-related topics only.
All other students (including Oxford students):
Day ticket £100
*We have a small number of fully funded places for participants from asset owners, governments, and financial regulators. Please email us with your biographical details together with information about your position and affiliation, as well as why you are applying for a free place and we will consider this when you apply for a place.
Register
Please click on the button below to register to attend.
Please note that the Summit will likely be oversubscribed and we strongly encourage early registration.
The registration fee is per person and includes the drinks reception and dinner.
All registrations will be pending until confirmed by the organisers, and fee payment will only be processed once the registration is confirmed. We expect a significant waiting list for some of the categories and we will let you know about your registration as soon as possible.
“There’s something special about meeting in a place where, for centuries, great minds have been debating the issues or our time. That unlocks a willingness of freedom to engage in the big questions.”
Ben Caldecott, Director, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group
“The one word that I’ve been feeling in the last 24 hours at the Summit (2025) has been ‘resolute’. It’s at events like this when you are reminded why sustainability is the financial risk and opportunity of our time”
Sarah Barker, Managing Director, Pollination Law
Become a Summit Partner
We have a range of partnership benefits, including speaking slots, branding opportunities, social media engagement, and complimentary tickets for staff and clients, among other things.
We have a preference to work with a small number of strategic partners.
Summit Venue
RHODES HOUSE
Rhodes House was designed by Sir Herbert Baker and built between 1926 and 1928. A grade II* listed building, Rhodes House reflects a number of influences: Cape Dutch farmhouse, English country mansion, and the Arts and Crafts movements of the 1900s. This unique blend of architectural styles made Rhodes House a unique addition to the architectural landscape of Oxford. Rhodes House has enjoyed a storied past, playing host to world figures from Albert Einstein to Nelson Mandela. Today, the House has been reimagined for the 21st Century, through a project to refresh and restore its traditional rooms, while creating new spaces fit for the 21st century and beyond.
THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE
Closing debate on Thursday 17th July 2025.
Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1669, the Sheldonian is the ceremonial heart of the University of Oxford.
THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM
Reception, dinner, and after party on Thursday 17th July 2025.
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford was established in 1683. The Ashmolean is the oldest museum in the United Kingdom and the second oldest university museum in the world.
The museum houses the University’s collections of art and antiquities.
Accommodation
Oxford offers a large number of accommodation options in every category. Here is a list of recommended hotels. Please ensure to book your accommodation well in advance as summer is a busy period in Oxford.
Summit Partners
SILVER
Silver
Confirmed Speakers
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