Sustainable Business Covered podcast: Spotlight on green finance, ESG and the TCFD

All edie podcast episodes can be listened to via iTunes

Presented by edie’s senior reporter Sarah George and kindly sponsored by Inspired Energy, this episode of the Sustainable Business Covered Podcast explores the state of play regarding an array of sustainable finance topics in the UK and Europe, including tackling financed emissions in line with climate science; scaling green products like bonds and loans; measuring climate and nature-related risks and complying with new disclosure requirements.

The first half of this episode features an exclusive interview with UKSIF’s chief executive James Alexander. Building on UKSIF’s recent policy statement, co-created by more than 240 organisations, Alexander outlines what the investor community wants to come from COP26 in November.

Then, following this broad overview of discussions between investors and policymakers, Sarah catches up with ING’s global head of sustainable finance Leonie Schreve.

More than two years after ING began implementing its ‘Terra’ tool in a bid to align its €600bn lending book with the Paris Agreement’s temperature pathway, Schreve outlines what ING has learned about engagement and divestment. She also looks at the role of policies such as taxonomies and disclosure mandates in bringing the laggards along, building on Alexander’s comments.

Lastly, Sarah dials Inspired Energy’s director of ESG disclosures, Rosemary De Vos, to look at ESG disclosure trends – including disclosing climate risk in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

The edie podcast is now available to listen to on Spotify. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and bookmark this page to see the full list of podcast episodes as they appear. 

Have a question about this podcast or a suggestion for future episodes? Email us at podcast@fav-house.com. Please bear in mind that speaking opportunities are now full through to the end of July.

TCFD Masters series

This episode forms part of an exclusive Masters series from edie and Inspired Energy on the topic of the TCFD. 

Another component of this series is a free, downloadable guide answering frequently asked questions relating to TCFD-aligned disclosures, which is now available here. This 10-page edie Explains guide features an expert viewpoint from De Vos on the need for clear and consistent climate disclosure. 

The Masters series has also included a 45-Minute Masterclass webinar, which is now streaming on-demand and is free to access. The session includes case studies from Inspired Energy’s own disclosure journey and that of British American Tobacco (BAT). You can stream that Masterclass on-demand here.

Join the conversation at edie’s Sustainable Investment conference 

edie’s Sustainable Investment Conference is returning in a virtual format for the second consecutive year on 13-14 July, with hundreds of professionals already registered to attend. 

The conference will unite sustainability professionals from businesses and financial experts from investors to discuss the array of challenges and opportunities that embracing the green recovery can bring. Experts from the likes of BlackRock, UKSIF, UBS Asset Management, CDP and WWF feature on the event’s high-level speaker list. 

Click here for a full agenda and to register for tickets. 

edie Staff