The Sustainable Finance Podcast

As climate risk management takes center stage for US financial regulators, how can investors, corporations, governments, and policymakers use climate risk analytics and software to manage the risks and opportunities from climate change adaptation. Stacy Swann, CEO of Climate Finance Advisors, talks to me about why “translators” are needed to interpret the forward-looking climate data tools being u...

Shehriyar Antia, Vice President, Head of Thematic Research at PGIM, walks us through their recently published Megatrends Report. How do institutional investors understand climate change risk repricing? How do fixed income investors deal with available data that is estimated rather than reported? How can equity investors turn climate risk into opportunity? Join us for an in-depth discussion of the...

Seeds is an exciting new Technology platform that financial advisors can use with clients to help them align their values with their investments. Zach Conway, Founder and CEO of Seeds and Managing Director of Conway Wealth talks about how Seeds works and how it developed through his firm’s focus on balancing life and money. He launched Seeds with a $5B RIA, and has recently partnered with Just Cap...

Preeti Sinha, Executive Secretary at United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), talks about their newest innovative programs, like the UNCDF 500. This initiative will support 500 companies in the LDCs (Least Developed Countries), focusing on women’s economic development, climate change, and biodiversity. And their newly launched partnership with 100 Women in Finance, which has 20,000 members...

William Burckart, President at The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), talks about 21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive System Change, the new book he co-authored with Steve Lydenberg, one of the pioneers of sustainable investing. Burckart explains that the nature of risks threatening today’s investor portfolios are fundamentally destabilizing. These challenges are...

Enviva is the largest supplier of sustainable wood biomass in the world. Jens Wolf, Vice President and General Manager at Enviva Europe, explains how the U.S. has a promising opportunity to provide low-carbon renewable energy and heat solutions to enable the transition to a net zero economy, as targeted by the E.U. and U.K. Today, bioenergy is the largest renewable energy source in the E.U., with...

The clean water challenge: Only 3 percent of water on earth is fresh and potable for healthy human consumption, and 70% of this is used for agricultural production. Paul talks to John Simon about how Total Impact Capital is using blended finance to fund social enterprises with expertise in achieving several of the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, including #6: Clean Water and Sanitatio...

Ardian, a global PE firm with European roots, manages US$110BN. Since Ardian started their ESG platform, they have completed 130 ESG roadmaps for companies in their portfolio, using their Sustainable Buyout Investment approach. Candice Brenet, Managing Director and Head of Sustainability and Digital Transformation talks about how their process has reduced both emissions and employee absenteeism by...

Hughes discusses their process for ESG integration, which includes Schroders Sustainability Accreditation, enabling clients to distinguish how ESG factors are considered across the firm’s products. The second phase of their process will include impactIQ, a platform encompassing the firm’s proprietary tools. impactIQ will enable Schroders to identify companies that build businesses that can adapt t...

Ringger brings 25 years of experience as a pioneer in sustainable finance to his new company, Globalance. The company is designed to be an interactive platform for investors to assess current portfolios against other models and indexes. Ringger talks about how investors can use the Globalance Footprint, an analytic tool that provides economic, social, and environmental impact information about inv...

Lutz describes the new US Diversity Index, the first of its kind for US companies and directors that includes ethnicity along with gender. We also discuss the launch of the Governance QualityScore (GQS) Index family, designed to help investors identify large and mid-cap companies with strong board structure and shareholder rights as well as those aligned with UN Global Compact principles. In addit...

Ellis, together with Nikolay Djibankov, leads the Matterhorn Group at William Blair, a full-service wealth advisory group developing and executing sophisticated financial and philanthropic plans for individuals, businesses, and nonprofit institutions. Ellis and I talk about their two portfolios: The Gender Parity Strategy and the The Matterhorn/Refinitiv Diversity & Inclusion Strategy. Ellis expla...

As the key developer of the sustainable investing framework for Aegon Asset Management, Rich focuses on how to invest alongside sustainable megatrends in fixed income. We talk about the huge issuance of labeled bonds ($444B in 2020): green bonds, social bonds, and sustainable bonds. Rich shares a practical approach to identifying sustainable megatrends and opportunities across the fixed income spe...

After eight years doing development work in the public sector as a U.S. Federal Government Boren Scholar, and four years in the private banking industry focused on ESG and SRI, Williams has recently launched ImpactVest, dedicated to private equity impact strategies that use the GIIN (Global Impact Investing Network) tenets. Williams shares the startling statistic that only 4% of impact funds are c...

Jake Moeller, Senior Investment Consultant at Square Mile, talks about the dramatic increase in assets under management going into sustainable and responsible investment strategies globally since 2016, with 30%+ AUM in both the U.S. and Europe incorporating ESG analysis. Moeller and I discuss how Europe continues to be 5+ years ahead of the U.S. in enacting regulatory policies related to greenhous...

According to Essayas, the Covid-19 pandemic and the growing number of storms, fires, and other environmental disasters have affected every aspect of ESG analytics across all sectors of the economy. What will this mean over the next few years? Join us for this discussion as Essays explains that ESG metrics will be more dynamic, with more collaboration across data and analytics platforms leading to...

Four Twenty Seven promotes climate adaptation and resilient investment through the integration of climate science into business and policy decisions, particularly their climate risk scores for listed securities, risk assessments for real estate, and intelligence services for scenario analysis. In our conversation Mazzacurati also talks about the increasing number of carbon neutrality declarations...

After many years in the asset management industry, Kirshman launched Impact Metropolis as a social network and video hosting site dedicated to the sustainable and impact investing community. According to Kirshman, as sustainable investing becomes more mainstream, collaboration and sharing of information is being impacted. Kirshman describes how Impact Metropolis is both aggregating resources acros...

Pina walks us through the cutting edge technology that converts food waste into industrial grade organic fertilizer for soil-less and vertical farms. The technology is carbon negative and has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6-12,000 metric tons CO2e per year while increasing produce yields by 20% to 30%. The implications for urban agriculture are extraordinary, and offer an exc...

Marsh & McClennan, the world's leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy and people, offers sustainable finance capabilities across all four businesses (Marsh, Mercer, Oliver Wyman and Guy Carpenter). In our podcast, Bernhardt talks about how the sustainable finance revolution is impacting asset valuations related to physical and transition climate risk as well as workplace...