Oxford Sustainable Finance Summit
19th-20th July 2023
Conference
Topics we will cover include
- Achieving the aims of the biodiversity framework
- Achieving Water Security
- Collective intelligence
- Enforcement and greenwashing
- Empowering private markets
- Environmental stress testing
- Future of stewardship and engagement
- Index design and unintended consequences
- Legal innovations
- Net zero aligned offsetting
- Spotlight on ASEAN
- Transition plans
Conference Agenda
Conference Venue: The Examination Schools, University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford OX1 4BG
09:30 – 10:30
Arrival and Registration
10:30 – 10:45
Welcome Address
South School
10:45 – 12:15
Opening Panel Discussion
Sustainable Finance 2025: A look ahead
South School
Chair: Sophie Robinson-Tillett, Senior Associate P3S Academy, University of Oxford
Anne Simpson, Global Head of Sustainability, Franklin Templeton
Nathan Fabian, Chief Sustainable Systems Officer, UNPRI
Richard Barker, Member, International Sustainability Standards Board
Robert G Eccles, Visiting Professor of Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Yulanda Chung, Head of Sustainability, DBS Bank
The past 12 months has been a turning point for sustainable finance on multiple fronts, from product innovation to regulatory change to politicisation to geopolitics.
This opening panel will set the stage for the deep dive discussions we’ll have over the course of the summit. Panellists will reflect on the key macro developments of over last year and what they could mean for the future of sustainable finance.
12:15 – 13:00
Opening Keynote
South School
Sabine Mauderer, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank
13:00 – 14:30
Lunch
North School
14:30 – 16:00
Session I
Enforcement and greenwashing: is enforcement changing the practice of sustainable finance and what are the longer term implications?
South School
Chair: Sarah Barker, Partner, Head of Climate & Sustainability Risk, Minter Ellison
Catriona Glascott, Lawyer, ClientEarth
Desiree Fixler, Chief Content Officer, Attain
Tim Rowe, Manager, Sustainable Finance, Financial Conduct Authority
Tina Mavraki, Fellow, Chapter Zero
From greenwashing to ‘green-hushing’, the thinking around how the finance sector communicates its sustainability credentials has been redrawn over the past year.
What do all these developments mean for the finance sector? Are regulators forcing a more realistic conversation with stakeholders about environmental and social impacts in the real world? Are they successfully pushing institutions to fulfil their promises? Or are they simply scaring investors off of making bold commitments? Will sustainability ambitions be watered down by lawyers and compliance teams from now on?
In this session, experts will lay out some of the biggest greenwashing issues and how the market is responding to them.
Session II
Achieving the aims of the biodiversity framework: What role for finance?
East School
Chair: Robin Millington, Chief Executive Officer, Planet Tracker
Johan Florén, Chief ESG and Communication Officer, AP7, and member of TNFD
Jenni Ramos, Lawyer, Corporate/Finance and Biodiversity, Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI)
Jessica Smith, Nature Lead, UNEP Finance Initiative, UN
Keith Tuffley, Vice Chairman and Global Co-Head, Sustainability & Corporate Transitions, Citibank
After two years of delays, COP15 was finally held in December, bringing together nearly 200 governments to negotiate a global agreement on biodiversity and conservation. The resulting Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is being hailed by some as a ‘Paris Agreement for Nature’. It commits signatories to act to conserve 30% of land, sea and freshwater sources by 2030; to rethink $500bn in annual subsidies that support businesses which undermine nature-related objectives; and to raise at least $200bn each year for conservation.
But what role can the finance sector play in supporting the framework’s goals? Will these government commitments create a new set of financial risks and opportunities for financial institutions? And is there enough of a roadmap to encourage capital allocation and stewardship strategies?
This panel will examine the implications of the global biodiversity framework and how financial institutions can, and already are, moving to support its objectives.
16:00 – 16:30
Tea/Coffee Break
North School
16:30 – 18:00
Session III
Net zero aligned offsetting: where do we need to get to and how do we get there?
South School
Chair: Simon Mundy, Moral Money Editor, Financial Times
Genevieve Soh, Head of Platforms and Ecosystem, Climate Impact X
Professor Rachel Kyte, Dean Emerita, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Co-Chair, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative
Scarlett Benson, Beyond Value Chain Mitigation Lead, Food and Land Use Coalition
Vikram Widge, Senior Advisor, Climate Policy Initiative
William McDonnell, Chief Operating Officer, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
There are big plans to make voluntary carbon markets a more central part of the climate transition story. At COP27, John Kerry announced his intention to launch an offsetting scheme through which corporate emitters in the US could buy credits from developing countries that are greening their energy grids. 2022 also saw progress on developing a global carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
But there are still questions about the credibility of voluntary carbon markets. Scientists in the US concluded that forestry offset programmes in California had achieved “no real climate benefit” in the past 10 years, for example. Improper accounting, re-release of stored carbon and damage to humans and ecosystems are among the challenges faced by voluntary carbon markets.
There have been efforts to strengthen norms and expectations around the use of offsets in net zero strategies, through the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (VCMI). This panel will look at progress so far on aligning voluntary carbon markets with net zero and establishing rules around their use, and will reflect on what steps are needed next.
Session IV
Spotlight on ASEAN: SE Asia as a driver of innovation in sustainable finance and investment
East School
Chair: Darian McBain, Senior Associate, Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance (P3SA), University of Oxford
Eric Lim, Chief Sustainability Officer, UOB
Jenn Hui Tan, Global Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investing, Fidelity International
Madelena Mohamed, Director of Sustainability Unit, Bank Negara Malaysia
Swisa Pongpech, Head of Research Group, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research, Bank of Thailand
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is playing an important role in setting standards and developing partnerships for green investment across Asia. From innovative solutions to prevent deforestation, engage SMEs and promote ESG disclosures to collaborations between governments and financial institutions, the region is pioneering new ideas and solutions to sustainability challenges.
This session will take a deeper dive into some of the key innovations that have been made in Southeast Asia over the past 12 months and reflect on how the region could drive change in the future.
18:00 – 18:30
Break
18:30 – 22:00
Reception and Dinner
Divinity School
Conference Venue: The Examination Schools, University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford OX1 4BG
08:30 – 09:00
Tea/Coffee
North School
09:00 – 10:15
Session V
Achieving Water Security
South School
Chair: Dr Alex Money, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Earth Observation
Cate Lamb, Global Director, Water Security, CDP
Dr Jennifer Willetts, Head of Sustainability Data and Research – Global, Franklin Templeton
Luke Sussams, Head of EMEA ESG and Sustainable Finance, Jefferies
Rhys Owen, Research Director, BlueTech Research
Scott McCready, Chief Strategy Officer, Alliance for Water Stewardship
The United Nations estimates that around 6 billion people will face a scarcity of clean water by 2050. Already, more than a quarter of the world’s population live in water-stressed areas. Some estimates imply that in certain contexts, the gap between supply and demand for water will widen to 40% by the end of the decade.
Water scarcity has economic, social, financial and environmental implications. There is a financing gap that needs to be addressed if the risks around rising water scarcity, falling water quality, and a lack of access to water for sanitation and hygiene are to be mitigated. At United Nations conference on Water, held in March 2023, a new agenda was proposed to change the status quo on how: a) the way public and private actors collaborate; b) the way infrastructure investments are planned; and c) the way scarce public resources are deployed.
An alliance of actors from national governments, international development financial institutions, the private sector, and civil society has been created to collaborate on a practical proposal for reaching collective action at scale, and support finance development and de-risking mechanisms for transformational water investments.
In this session, we will discuss what the plan is – in specifics – with some of these actors.
Session VI
Future of stewardship and engagement: Has Exxon/EngineNo1 changed anything two years later?
East School
Chair: Professor Rob Bauer, Professor of Finance, Maastricht University
Laura Hillis, Director, Climate and Environment (Responsible Investment), Church of England Pension Board
Catherine Howarth, Chief Executive Officer, ShareAction
Geraldine Leegwater, Chief Investment Management, PGGM
Lindsey Stewart, Director of Investment Stewardship Research, Morningstar
In 2020, activist investor Engine No.1 led a campaign to get experts with ‘climate competence’ appointed to the board of Exxon. The campaign, which cost millions of dollars, was hailed as a watershed moment for climate finance. After a dramatic vote at the oil major’s 2021 AGM, shareholders appointed three of Engine No.1’s nominated experts.
As well as getting Exxon to address the risk that climate change poses to its business model, the vote was supposed to serve as a warning shot to other oil companies over the need for climate competence to be factored into board composition.
But has it achieved any of this? Has Exxon’s new board steered it any closer to Paris alignment? Have other oil majors learnt lessons for Exxon’s very public feud with shareholders and added climate expertise to their boards? Did anything really change?
This session will seek to explore how we can make stewardship more effective. Which barriers exist for effective stewardship and engagement and how can we remove them?
10:15 – 10:45
Tea/Coffee Break
North School
10:45 – 12:15
Session VII
Transition plans: emerging best practices and regulatory developments
South School
Chair: Alastair Marsh, Journalist, Bloomberg News
Carine Smith Inhenacho, Chief Governance and Compliance Officer, Norges Bank Investment Management
Karen Ellis, Chief Economist, WWF UK
Mark Manning, Strategic Policy Advisor, Sustainable Finance, FCA
Transition plans and transition planning are a critically important development that can help turn ambitious climate objectives into reality. Financial regulation for transition plans is evolving rapidly. 2023 will see the development of final standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), the UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and the US Climate Reporting Rule. Transition plans are being considered within these standards, are being recommended by the UN Secretary General, and considered by the Financial Stability Board, the NGFS and IOSCO. The Transition Plan Taskforce has developed guidance for gold standard plans, informing regulation in the UK and supporting global coherence on what transition plans are and how they can be used.
Within this fast moving context, this panel will consider emerging best practice, global regulatory developments, and what’s to come on this crucial step towards net zero.
Session VIII
Environmental Stress Testing: novel developments and case studies
East School
Chair: Gireesh Shrimali, Head of Transition Finance Research, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, University of Oxford
Billy Suid, Head of Climate Risk, Barclays
Julja Prodani, Senior Policy Advisor, Financial Stability, De Nederlandsche Bank
Martijn Regelink, Senior Financial Economist, World Bank
Climate stress testing exercises have been widely performed by many central banks and regulators, as well as international organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank, with now many institutions exploring the nexus between climate and nature. In the climate context, for the first time, practical insights into the capacity building effects on participating institutions, challenges around implementation of such exercises and methodological variation across different approaches can be drawn. In this session we discuss how the learning in the first round of international exploratory climate stress tests can guide us in designing more decision relevant stress tests with a wider focus on other environmental dimensions.
12:15 – 13:30
Lunch
North School
13:30 – 14:45
Session IX
Empowering private markets and adaptation: The role of infrastructure finance and private equity in enhancing resilience
South School
Chair: Toby Mitchenall, Senior Editor, ESG and Sustainability, PEI – Alternative Insights
Dr Alex Money, Programme Director, University of Oxford
Dr Ben Meng, Executive Vice President and Chairman of Asia Pacific, Executive Sponsor of Sustainability, Franklin Templeton
Desiree Fixler, Chief Content Officer, Attain
Peter Dunbar, Head of Private Equity, PRI
Private markets have a key role to play in transitioning the economy to net zero. Much of the focus for sustainable finance so far has been on mobilising investors and companies in listed asset classes, but private debt and equity investors are uniquely placed to drive change at portfolio companies, especially in the SME space. They will also be critical to supporting the retirement of polluting assets and the development of new technologies.
This session will look at how regulation and broader market practice should evolve to encourage investors to support a socially-responsible transition to net zero through their private markets portfolios. It will also explore the trend for large listed companies and investors to sell their most challenging assets into the private markets where environmental scrutiny is lower.
Session X
Collective intelligence: can we marshal the wisdom of the crowd to improve sustainable finance analytics?
East School
Chair: Lise Pretorius, Chief Sustainability
Analysis Officer, Matter
Felix Preston, Director – Research & Programs, Climate Arc
Jo Raven, Director of Thematic Research & Corporate Innovation, FAIRR
Nikki Gwilliam-Beeharee, Investor Engagement Strategic Lead, World Benchmarking Alliance
Ray Dhirani, Head of Impact Management, Tribe Impact Capital
We have never had more sustainability data and analytics available for financial decision-making. It comes from a wide variety of different sources, including commercial data providers, NGOs, academic researchers, the media, corporate disclosures, web-scraping, and earth observation. This is intermediated by various organisations and individuals. How can we use this growing mass of information more effectively, and how might collaboration and coordination between different voices and perspectives result in better outcomes for climate, environmental, and social analysis, particularly in the financial services sector.
In this session we’ll explore what collective intelligence is, the opportunities and challenges of using it to enhance decision-making, and hear directly from organisations deploying these methods in practice.
14:45 – 15:15
Tea/Coffee Break
North School
15:15 – 16:30
Session XI
Legal innovations: what key legal strategies are being deployed to further sustainable finance?
South School
Chair: Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker, Editor, Responsible Investor
Matthew Gingell, General Counsel, The Chancery Lane Project
Sarah Barker, Partner, Head of Climate & Sustainability Risk Governance, Minter Ellison
Vanessa Havard-Williams, Partner and Head of Environment and Climate Change, Linklaters
Sustainable finance is a rapidly developing area of legal innovation. Courts are being asked by shareholders to ensure that corporations are sufficiently ambitious in their climate targets and to rule on class actions alleging that companies’ ESG-related disclosures are inaccurate.
Outside the courtroom, corporate and finance lawyers have an important role to play in ensuring their clients are integrating sustainability considerations into their work. For example, The Chancery Lane Project creates climate-aligned and other environmental clauses for contracts. This has the potential to change the way corporate and finance lawyers give advice, with lawyers considering climate increasingly in their day-to-day work.
On the other hand, there are legal innovations that are being used to hinder efforts to take collective action on climate change. Legal issues have rocketed to the top of the sustainable finance agenda over the past 18 months, driven by growing questions around the legality of collaborative engagement and market-wide fossil fuel divestment. In the US, major investment names have been hauled in front of lawmakers to explain how they are ensuring they don’t flout anti-competition rules in pursuit of their environmental and social objectives. Companies feeling the pinch of government regulations on climate have brought claims alleging that such regulations breach investment treaties.
In this panel, we explore some of the strategies being developed to support green and social objectives in financial markets and to combat legal challenges seeking to hinder the ESG movement.
Session XII
Index design and unintended consequences: can we create indices that don’t result in paper decarbonisation?
East School
Chair: Sophie Robinson-Tillett, Senior Associate P3S Academy, University of Oxford
Craig McKenzie, Head of Sustainability, Multi-Asset & Investment Solutions, Abrdn
Dr Ellen Quigley, Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer, Responsible Investments, University of Cambridge
Jakob Thomä, Project Director, Inevitable Policy Response
Lee Clements, Head of Applied Sustainable Investment Research, FTSE Russell
Passive investment is a central pillar of financial markets, making greener indices crucial to unlocking investment in the climate transition. But there are disagreements about how passive strategies should be deployed to ensure meaningful alignment with net zero pathways.
The EU wants Paris-aligned benchmarks and funds claiming to pursue sustainability objectives to demonstrate a willingness to diverge from broad market benchmarks, because that’s the only way investment will differ from business-as-usual. But how easy is that? And is it enough? Should net zero benchmarks factor in the carbon budget? What are the legal implications of deviating from mainstream economic performance to meet climate objectives? Will benchmarks ever be the right tool through which to decarbonise the real economy?
During this panel, we’ll hear from index experts, investors and climate specialists about the challenges of creating indices that achieve more than just ‘paper’ decarbonisation.
16:30 – 17:00
Break
Transfer to The Sheldonian Theatre
17:00 – 17:30
Insight Investment – University of Oxford Prize for Greening Finance announcement
The Sheldonian
17:30 – 19:00
Closing Debate – Motion: This House believes that 1.5 degrees is alive in part thanks to the efforts of the finance sector
The Sheldonian
Chair: Robert G Eccles, Visiting Professor of Management Practice, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
PROPOSITION:
Dr Jakob Thomä, Project Director, Inevitable Policy Response
Nathan Fabian, Chief Sustainable Systems Officer, UNPRI
Tina Mavraki, Portfolio Director & Strategic Adviser
OPPOSITION
Dr Ulf Erlandsson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute
Dr Darian McBain, Senior Associate, Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance (P3SA), University of Oxford
Dr Ellen Quigley, Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer, Responsible Investments, University of Cambridge
19:00 – 19:30
Break
19:30 – 22:30
Dinner
Ashmolean Museum
22:30 until late
Conference after-Party
Freud Oxford
Search by topic
14:30 – 16:00
Session II
Achieving the aims of the biodiversity framework: What role for finance?
East School
Chair: Robin Millington, Chief Executive Officer, Planet Tracker
Johan Florén, Chief ESG and Communication Officer, AP7, and member of TNFD
Jenni Ramos, Lawyer, Corporate/Finance and Biodiversity, Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative
Jessica Smith, Nature Lead, UNEP Finance Initiative, UN
Keith Tuffley, Vice Chairman and Global Co-Head, Sustainability & Corporate Transitions, Citibank
After two years of delays, COP15 was finally held in December, bringing together nearly 200 governments to negotiate a global agreement on biodiversity and conservation. The resulting Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is being hailed by some as a ‘Paris Agreement for Nature’. It commits signatories to act to conserve 30% of land, sea and freshwater sources by 2030; to rethink $500bn in annual subsidies that support businesses which undermine nature-related objectives; and to raise at least $200bn each year for conservation.
But what role can the finance sector play in supporting the framework’s goals? Will these government commitments create a new set of financial risks and opportunities for financial institutions? And is there enough of a roadmap to encourage capital allocation and stewardship strategies?
This panel will examine the implications of the global biodiversity framework and how financial institutions can, and already are, moving to support its objectives.
09:00 – 10:15
Session V
Achieving Water Security
South School
Chair: Dr Alex Money, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Earth Observation
Cate Lamb, Global Director, Water Security, CDP
Dr Jennifer Willetts, Head of Sustainability Data and Research – Global, Franklin Templeton
Luke Sussams, Head of EMEA ESG and Sustainable Finance, Jefferies
Rhys Owen, Research Director, BlueTech Research
Scott McCready, Chief Strategy Officer, Alliance for Water Stewardship
The United Nations estimates that around 6 billion people will face a scarcity of clean water by 2050. Already, more than a quarter of the world’s population live in water-stressed areas. Some estimates imply that in certain contexts, the gap between supply and demand for water will widen to 40% by the end of the decade.
Water scarcity has economic, social, financial and environmental implications. There is a financing gap that needs to be addressed if the risks around rising water scarcity, falling water quality, and a lack of access to water for sanitation and hygiene are to be mitigated. At United Nations conference on Water, held in March 2023, a new agenda was proposed to change the status quo on how: a) the way public and private actors collaborate; b) the way infrastructure investments are planned; and c) the way scarce public resources are deployed.
An alliance of actors from national governments, international development financial institutions, the private sector, and civil society has been created to collaborate on a practical proposal for reaching collective action at scale, and support finance development and de-risking mechanisms for transformational water investments.
In this session, we will discuss what the plan is – in specifics – with some of these actors.
13:30 – 14:45
Session X
Collective intelligence: can we marshal the wisdom of the crowd to improve sustainable finance analytics?
East School
Chair: Lise Pretorius, Chief Sustainability
Analysis Officer, Matter
Felix Preston, Head of Strategic Research, Climate Arc
Jo Raven, Director of Thematic Research & Corporate Innovation, FAIRR
Nikki Gwilliam-Beeharee, Investor Engagement Strategic Lead, World Benchmarking Alliance
Ray Dhirani, Head of Impact Management, Tribe Impact Capital
We have never had more sustainability data and analytics available for financial decision-making. It comes from a wide variety of different sources, including commercial data providers, NGOs, academic researchers, the media, corporate disclosures, web-scraping, and earth observation. This is intermediated by various organisations and individuals. How can we use this growing mass of information more effectively, and how might collaboration and coordination between different voices and perspectives result in better outcomes for climate, environmental, and social analysis, particularly in the financial services sector.
In this session we’ll explore what collective intelligence is, the opportunities and challenges of using it to enhance decision-making, and hear directly from organisations deploying these methods in practice.
13:30 – 14:45
Session IX
Empowering private markets: The role of infrastructure finance and private equity in enhancing resilience
South School
Chair: Toby Mitchenall, Senior Editor, ESG and Sustainability, PEI – Alternative Insights
Dr Alex Money, Programme Director, University of Oxford
Dr Ben Meng, Executive Vice President and Chairman of Asia Pacific, Executive Sponsor of Sustainability, Franklin Templeton
Desiree Fixler, Chief Content Officer, Attain
Peter Dunbar, Head of Private Markets, PRI
Private markets have a key role to play in transitioning the economy to net zero. Much of the focus for sustainable finance so far has been on mobilising investors and companies in listed asset classes, but private debt and equity investors are uniquely placed to drive change at portfolio companies, especially in the SME space. They will also be critical to supporting the retirement of polluting assets and the development of new technologies.
This session will look at how regulation and broader market practice should evolve to encourage investors to support a socially-responsible transition to net zero through their private markets portfolios. It will also explore the trend for large listed companies and investors to sell their most challenging assets into the private markets where environmental scrutiny is lower.
14:30 – 16:00
Session I
Enforcement and greenwashing: is enforcement changing the practice of sustainable finance and what are the longer term implications?
South School
Chair: Sarah Barker, Partner, Head of Climate & Sustainability Risk, Minter Ellison
Catriona Glascott, Lawyer, ClientEarth
Desiree Fixler, , Chief Content Officer, Attain
Tim Rowe, Manager, Sustainable Finance, Financial Conduct Authority
Tina Mavraki, Fellow, Chapter Zero
From greenwashing to ‘green-hushing’, the thinking around how the finance sector communicates its sustainability credentials has been redrawn over the past year.
What do all these developments mean for the finance sector? Are regulators forcing a more realistic conversation with stakeholders about environmental and social impacts in the real world? Are they successfully pushing institutions to fulfil their promises? Or are they simply scaring investors off of making bold commitments? Will sustainability ambitions be watered down by lawyers and compliance teams from now on?
In this session, experts will lay out some of the biggest greenwashing issues and how the market is responding to them.
10:45 – 12:15
Session VIII
Environmental Stress Testing: novel developments and case studies
East School
Chair: Gireesh Shrimali, Head of Transition Finance Research, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, University of Oxford
Billy Suid, Head of Climate Risk, Barclays
Julja Prodani, Senior Policy Advisor, Financial Stability, De Nederlandsche Bank
Martijn Regelink, World Bank
Climate stress testing exercises have been widely performed by many central banks and regulators, as well as international organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank, with now many institutions exploring the nexus between climate and nature. In the climate context, for the first time, practical insights into the capacity building effects on participating institutions, challenges around implementation of such exercises and methodological variation across different approaches can be drawn. In this session we discuss how the learning in the first round of international exploratory climate stress tests can guide us in designing more decision relevant stress tests with a wider focus on other environmental dimensions.
09:00 – 10:15
Session VI
Future of stewardship and engagement: Has Exxon/EngineNo1 changed anything two years later?
South School
Chair: Professor Rob Bauer, Professor of Finance, Maastricht University
Laura Hillis, Director, Climate and Environment (Responsible Investment), Church of England Pension Board
Catherine Howarth, Chief Executive Officer, ShareAction
Geraldine Leegwater, Chief Investment Management, PGGM
Lindsey Stewart, Director of Investment Stewardship Research, Morningstar
In 2020, activist investor Engine No.1 led a campaign to get experts with ‘climate competence’ appointed to the board of Exxon. The campaign, which cost millions of dollars, was hailed as a watershed moment for climate finance. After a dramatic vote at the oil major’s 2021 AGM, shareholders appointed three of Engine No.1’s nominated experts.
As well as getting Exxon to address the risk that climate change poses to its business model, the vote was supposed to serve as a warning shot to other oil companies over the need for climate competence to be factored into board composition.
But has it achieved any of this? Has Exxon’s new board steered it any closer to Paris alignment? Have other oil majors learnt lessons for Exxon’s very public feud with shareholders and added climate expertise to their boards? Did anything really change?
This session will seek to explore how we can make stewardship more effective. Which barriers exist for effective stewardship and engagement and how can we remove them?
15:15 – 16:30
Session XII
Index design and unintended consequences: can we create indices that don’t result in paper decarbonisation?
East School
Chair: Sophie Robinson-Tillett, Senior Associate P3S Academy, University of Oxford
Craig McKenzie, Head of Sustainability, Multi-Asset & Investment Solutions
Dr Ellen Quigley, Advisor to the Chief Financial Officer, Responsible Investments, University of Cambridge
Jakob Thomä, Executive Director & Co-Founder, 2° Investing Initiative
Lee Clements, Head of Applied Sustainable Investment Research, FTSE Russell
Passive investment is a central pillar of financial markets, making greener indices crucial to unlocking investment in the climate transition. But there are disagreements about how passive strategies should be deployed to ensure meaningful alignment with net zero pathways.
The EU wants Paris-aligned benchmarks and funds claiming to pursue sustainability objectives to demonstrate a willingness to diverge from broad market benchmarks, because that’s the only way investment will differ from business-as-usual. But how easy is that? And is it enough? Should net zero benchmarks factor in the carbon budget? What are the legal implications of deviating from mainstream economic performance to meet climate objectives? Will benchmarks ever be the right tool through which to decarbonise the real economy?
During this panel, we’ll hear from index experts, investors and climate specialists about the challenges of creating indices that achieve more than just ‘paper’ decarbonisation.
15:15 – 16:30
Session XI
Legal innovations: what key legal strategies are being deployed to further sustainable finance?
East School
Chair: Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker, Editor, Responsible Investor
Matthew Gingell, Chair and Founder, The Chancery Lane Project
Sarah Barker, Partner, Head of Climate & Sustainability Risk Governance, Minter Ellison
Vanessa Havard-Williams, Partner and Head of Environment and Climate Change, Linklaters
Sustainable finance is a rapidly developing area of legal innovation. Courts are being asked by shareholders to ensure that corporations are sufficiently ambitious in their climate targets and to rule on class actions alleging that companies’ ESG-related disclosures are inaccurate.
Outside the courtroom, corporate and finance lawyers have an important role to play in ensuring their clients are integrating sustainability considerations into their work. For example, The Chancery Lane Project creates climate-aligned and other environmental clauses for contracts. This has the potential to change the way corporate and finance lawyers give advice, with lawyers considering climate increasingly in their day-to-day work.
On the other hand, there are legal innovations that are being used to hinder efforts to take collective action on climate change. Legal issues have rocketed to the top of the sustainable finance agenda over the past 18 months, driven by growing questions around the legality of collaborative engagement and market-wide fossil fuel divestment. In the US, major investment names have been hauled in front of lawmakers to explain how they are ensuring they don’t flout anti-competition rules in pursuit of their environmental and social objectives. Companies feeling the pinch of government regulations on climate have brought claims alleging that such regulations breach investment treaties.
In this panel, we explore some of the strategies being developed to support green and social objectives in financial markets and to combat legal challenges seeking to hinder the ESG movement.
16:30 – 18:00
Session III
Net zero aligned offsetting: where do we need to get to and how do we get there?
South School
Chair: Simon Mundy, Moral Money Editor, Financial Times
Genevieve Soh, Head of Platforms and Ecosystem, Climate Impact X
Rachel Kyte, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative
Scarlett Benson, Director of Corporate Standards, Food and Land Use Coalition
Vikram Widge, Senior Advisor, Climate Policy Initiative
William McDonnell, Chief Operating Officer, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
There are big plans to make voluntary carbon markets a more central part of the climate transition story. At COP27, John Kerry announced his intention to launch an offsetting scheme through which corporate emitters in the US could buy credits from developing countries that are greening their energy grids. 2022 also saw progress on developing a global carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
But there are still questions about the credibility of voluntary carbon markets. Scientists in the US concluded that forestry offset programmes in California had achieved “no real climate benefit” in the past 10 years, for example. Improper accounting, re-release of stored carbon and damage to humans and ecosystems are among the challenges faced by voluntary carbon markets.
There have been efforts to strengthen norms and expectations around the use of offsets in net zero strategies, through the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (VCMI). This panel will look at progress so far on aligning voluntary carbon markets with net zero and establishing rules around their use, and will reflect on what steps are needed next.
16:30 – 18:00
Session IV
Spotlight on ASEAN: SE Asia as a driver of innovation in sustainable finance and investment
East School
Chair: Darian McBain, Senior Associate, Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance (P3SA), University of Oxford
Eric Lim, Chief Sustainability Officer, UOB
Jenn Hui Tan, Global Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investing, Fidelity International
Madelena Mohamed, Director of Sustainability Unit, Bank Negara Malaysia
Swisa Pongpech, Head of Sustainability Research, PIER, Bank of Thailand
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is playing an important role in setting standards and developing partnerships for green investment across Asia. From innovative solutions to prevent deforestation, engage SMEs and promote ESG disclosures to collaborations between governments and financial institutions, the region is pioneering new ideas and solutions to sustainability challenges.
This session will take a deeper dive into some of the key innovations that have been made in Southeast Asia over the past 12 months and reflect on how the region could drive change in the future.
10:45 – 12:15
Session VII
Transition plans: emerging best practices and regulatory developments
South School
Chair: Alastair Marsh, Journalist, Bloomberg News
Carine Smith Inhenacho, Chief Governance and Compliance Officer, Norges Bank Investment Management
Karen Ellis, Chief Economist, WWF UK
Mark Manning, Strategic Policy Advisor, Sustainable Finance, FCA
Transition plans and transition planning are a critically important development that can help turn ambitious climate objectives into reality. Financial regulation for transition plans is evolving rapidly. 2023 will see the development of final standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), the UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and the US Climate Reporting Rule. Transition plans are being considered within these standards, are being recommended by the UN Secretary General, and considered by the Financial Stability Board, the NGFS and IOSCO. The Transition Plan Taskforce has developed guidance for gold standard plans, informing regulation in the UK and supporting global coherence on what transition plans are and how they can be used.
Within this fast moving context, this panel will consider emerging best practice, global regulatory developments, and what’s to come on this crucial step towards net zero.
Summit Partners
PLATINUM
Silver
