Climate change is often categorised as being an environmental factor, put neatly into the ‘E’ box of ESG. However, climate change is fundamentally about people.
Unmitigated climate change could be devastating to people’s lives – it is likely to destroy homes and communities, impact health outcomes, contribute to war and damage livelihoods. These catastrophic consequences are expected to disproportionately impact marginalised groups such as woman, people of colour and those living below the poverty line. On the flipside, we won’t be able to achieve a successful climate transition without people in society supporting this. In other words, we need climate transition to be ‘just’ for it to be a success.
At this all-member event, our panel of experts discussed the just transition –why it is so important, how we can achieve it and what investors should be doing to address this.
Intended outcomes:
A deeper understanding of how climate change affects people and social factors.
Insights into how different market players are considering the just transition.
Practical knowledge and tools to align investment practices with a just transition.
We were delighted to be joined by an expert panel of speakers from Green Finance Institute, Marsh McLennan, The Predistribution Initiative and Rights CoLab.
Following the panel discussion, we moved to breakout rooms of mixed stakeholders, led by a number of our Community Partners: AXA Investment Managers, Cardano, Downing and Tikehau Capital.
This event explored how institutional investors can help ensure we achieve a just transition!
Who was this event for?
This event was designed for institutional investors, asset managers, pension fund trustees and advisers interested in deepening their understanding of climate change as a social factor and how we can work together to deliver a timely and just transition.
This session was open to all our members. If your organisation is yet to join Pensions for Purpose you may attend one event before deciding whether to sign up, so please register for a trial session.
Speakers
Swenja Surminski, Managing Director, Climate and Sustainability at Marsh McLennan and Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Professor Swenja Surminski, is a leading expert on climate change and risk finance and is Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability at Marsh McLennan (MMC). Swenja was appointed to the UK Committee on Climate Change – serving on mitigation and adaptation committees. She is also the elected chair of the not-for-profit Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, hosted at the United Nations University in Bonn. Swenja is a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the EU Science for Disaster Risk Management Report, and lead author of the UK's Climate Change Risk Assessment.
Delilah Rothenberg, Co-founder and Executive Director, The Predistribution Initiative
Delilah Rothenberg is a Co-Founder and the Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative (PDI), a multi-stakeholder non-profit supporting investors in identifying measurement and management tools, as well as investment structures, which share more wealth and influence with workers and communities. Delilah brings nearly two decades of experience in finance across asset classes – particularly private capital markets – having worked with private equity investors, lenders, and project developers on financing and sustainability and impact strategies for over 12 years. Earlier in her career, Delilah worked in sell-side equities with Bear Stearns and investment research with Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG).
Delilah serves and has served on various committees, advisory groups, and working groups for the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), Capitals Coalition, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD, where The Predistribution Initiative is also a Co-founder), and US city and state treasurers / comptrollers. She is an Executive Fellow at the Rutgers SMLR Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, a Sorenson Impact Leader, and a former Open Society Foundations Fellow.
Paul Rissman, Co-Founder, Rights CoLab
Paul helped found Rights CoLab, a global network of human rights experts incubating strategies for corporate and investor accountability, in 2018. Rights CoLab is a Founding Partner of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures. Paul was formerly Executive Vice President at AllianceBernstein L.P. and Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Growth Equities. He has served on various non-profit and for-profit boards, including the Sierra Club Foundation. Paul has also conducted scholarly research on sustainability reporting, and is a member of ISSB’s Sustainability Reference Group. He was an Open Society Fellow.
Breakout room moderators
Claudia Sanchez, Sales and Client Relations Manager, AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM)
Claudia Sanchez Buenaventura is responsible for managing and developing clients in the UK and Nordic region. Before joining AXA IM in 2023, she held various business development and management roles at Alliance Bernstein, focused on institutional and retail clients in the UK and in Europe. Claudia is an advocate of a dual investment objective - seeking financial returns while having a positive impact on the world - and being a good corporate citizen. To advance these ideals, she has founded a women’s group and wellbeing groups.
Claudia holds an MSc in Development Studies from the University of London, UK and a BA in International Economics and International Affairs from James Madison University, Virginia, USA.
Rhian Campbell, Sustainability Associate, Cardano
Rhian is an Associate on the Cardano Sustainability team. She joined Cardano in 2022 after completing her ACA with BGM, where she trained as an auditor for three years.
In her role at Cardano, Rhian is responsible for preparing the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures for pension schemes and analysing individual companies to determine their investability based on Cardano's policies and framework.
Additionally, Rhian is a member of the Group's gender inclusion network (GIN) committee, which focuses on promoting gender diversity within the organisation. She holds a BA (Hons) in Geography from Durham University.
Bill Manahan, Director of Institutional Solutions, Downing
Bill joined Downing in July 2023 as a Director of Institutional Solutions. He has a wealth of experience in the institutional space - private markets, risk management - across fundraising and business development. He holds a degree in Commerce from University College Dublin and has a post graduate diploma in Law from the Department for international Trade (DIT).
Simon Males, Executive Director and Head of UK Institutional Business, Tikehau Capital
Simon Males is Executive Director and Head of UK Institutional Business at Tikehau Capital, the €38.8bn global alternative asset management group. Simon has over three decades’ experience working within the UK institutional market, including leadership roles at global asset management firms such as Legal & General Investment Management, PGIM, Pictet Asset Management and F&C (BMO).
More recently, he founded Carrick Roads Capital Limited, an institutional consulting and capital-raising firm. Simon is a member of the Board of AIMSE Europe and has previously been a member of its Advisory Council since 2013. He is also a serving Trustee and Board Director of two UK Charities (North London Hospice and The Pemberton-Barnes Trust) and has previously served as a Trustee of a £130m UK defined benefit corporate pension plan. Simon holds an MBA from London Metropolitan University and several professional qualifications, including the IMC.
Host
Laasya Shekaran, Director, Pensions for Purpose
Laasya is responsible for working with our Community, developing content and knowledge, and driving forward collaborative initiatives across the industry.
Laasya is passionate about approaching pensions and investment with a systems lens and understanding how these sectors interact with the wider social and environmental systems they exist within.
Laasya is a CFA charterholder with experience working with a range of asset owners as an investment adviser, with a focus on corporate defined benefit pensions. Laasya is a regular speaker at industry conferences and events, and is also an experienced podcast host, currently hosting the Pensions for Purpose podcast. Laasya is an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion and is particularly passionate about anti-racism activism. She has previously won the Women in Pensions and Women in Investment Rising Star awards.
Pensions for Purpose
Pensions for Purpose exists as a bridge between asset managers, pension funds and their professional advisers, to encourage the flow of capital towards impact investment. Our aim is to empower pension funds to seek positive impact opportunities and mitigate negative impact risks.
Our Community allows members to learn from leaders in the impact investment industry. We provide a trusted environment to interact, collaborate and share knowledge. Members engage in a programme of activity to shape their strategy in ESG, sustainable and impact investments.
For more information, please email the Membership Manager.
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