The Net Zero Business podcast: How is Coutts tackling financed and managed emissions?

Listen to the new episode on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music or Google Podcasts

Following on from the UK Government’s world-leading net-zero carbon commitment, edie’s spinoff podcast series, Net-Zero Business, hears from the trendsetters and trailblazers of responsible businesses.

Since the UK Government set its 2050 net-zero target into law, more and more businesses are attempting to get ahead of the political curve by strengthening carbon and energy strategies and pledging to become net-zero businesses well before the 2050 deadline.

The Net-Zero Business podcast is a monthly digest of episodes that take a deeper dive into a business’s net-zero strategy. It usually features one in-depth interview with a sustainability or energy manager at a business working towards net-zero or carbon-neutrality.

Our interview for this episode is with Coutts’ director of responsible investing Karen Ermel, who edie’s senior reporter Sarah George meets at the firm’s London headquarters.

Often called ‘The Queen’s bank’, B-Corp-certified Coutts is one of the UK’s largest banking and wealth management firms for businesses and high-net-worth individuals. It is part of the Natwest Group, which is perhaps best known for personal banking on the high street.

The Natwest Group is working to halve financed and managed emissions by 2030 and to bring them to net-zero by 2050. A mixed approach will be taken to achieve this, including supporting low-carbon projects, tightening climate-related exclusion criteria, engaging with transitioning firms in high-carbon sectors, and some divestment.

Karen is on hand to outline how these targets were developed and what they will mean for Natwest Group across its varied activities globally. She provides her opinions on how responsible investing should be defined, how investor engagement is evolving and why collaboration is key to create not only thematic funds, but sweeping decarbonisation across the economy.

As this episode comes to a close, Sarah highlights that Natwest Group’s head of sustainable finance Rishi Madlani will be speaking at edie’s upcoming Sustainable Investment Inspiration Sessions event. Taking place online on Thursday 21 July, this free-to-attend event is kindly sponsored by Inspired Energy and is designed to inform, inspire and empower listeners as they work to scale up financing for the just transition to net-zero. Click here to see a full agenda and to register. 

The edie podcast is available to listen to on Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple and Google. 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 all our speaker slots are now filled until the end of July, and we will then be taking a brief season break in preparation for some exciting changes to the series.