The Biodiversity Challenge for Pensions

In addition to his role at M&G, Mark is a Member of the Independence Governance Committee at Zurich Insurance; Executive Chairman of the UBS (UK) Pension & Life Assurance Scheme Investment Committee; and a Member of the Investment & Funding and DC Committees at Lloyds Banking Group Pensions. He was previously the Chief Investment Officer of HSBC Bank Pension Trust (UK) Limited, who he joined in 2011.

Prior to this, he held a number of senior investment roles at Prudential/M&G. These included UK Equity Fund Manager, Head of Equity Research, Director of Collective Investments, and Investment & Strategy Director for Prudential Europe. 

Charles is a Co-founder of Carbon Growth Partners. He is an attorney with more than 25 years’ global conservation and climate experience. 

As the Asia-Pacific Managing Director for The Nature Conservancy, he was accountable for navigating the legal, political, cultural and financial complexity of business units spanning China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Pacific and elsewhere.

He is a visiting professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Jamie Broderick is Deputy Chair of the Impact Investing Institute, an independent, non-profit UK organisation that aims to accelerate the growth and improve the effectiveness of the impact investing market.  The Institute is supported by the UK’s Government Inclusive Economy Unit, the City of London Corporation, and a number of financial services organisations in the UK.

Jamie was head of UBS Wealth Management in the UK from 2013-2017. Jamie joined UBS after nineteen years at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, latterly as Chief Executive of its European operations. He joined J.P. Morgan in New York in 1993 and moved to London in 1996. He started his financial services career at Wellington Management Company, an independent asset management partnership in Boston.

He studied Arabic Linguistics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard College and continued those studies in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago.

Michael is a Managing Director and head of sustainability advisory at Cardano.

An accountant by training, Michael has been providing covenant advice to trustees and corporate sponsors since 2008 and in 2019 founded Cardano’s specialist sustainability advisory team. 

Marian is the Global Head of Risk & Sustainability at GFG Alliance. 

Prior to joining GFG, she was a Managing Director at Redington and before that led Deloitte’s Trustee Advisory team in London. Her experience covers pension risk management, sustainability, trusteeship, scheme actuarial work, corporate advisory and investment consulting.

Arne Philipp Klug, as Director of Biodiversity Research for MSCI, oversees thematic research on biodiversity and natural capital. He engages with investors and key stakeholders to help clients set and prioritize their investment objectives to biodiversity. In addition, Arne serves on the ESG Editorial Committee.

 

Until 2021, Arne has led MSCI’S ESG research on the transportation sector. He authored several reports on ESG issues with a special focus on the automobiles and airlines industries.

 

Prior to joining MSCI, Arne worked for more than six years as an ESG analyst and account manager at Sustainalytics in Frankfurt and Toronto. Arne holds a master’s degree in communications science, political economics and Hispanic studies from the University of Münster in Germany.

Emma has been at the forefront of developments in stewardship, ESG, sustainable investment for 25 years.

She is an expert in change management and the development and implementation of policy and strategy. The power of strong partnerships, effective change management, commercial acumen and good humour are cornerstones of Emma’s approach to work. 

Denise’s role as Chair of Brunel Pension Partnership goes back to its foundation, and to the guiding vision she helped to formulate: Forging better futures by investing for a world worth living in.

Denise was formerly Chair of the LGA’s Local Government Pension Committee (LGPC) and served as Board Member on the LGPS Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) from inception to May 2019. She has also served as Co- Chair of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF).
In another capacity, Denise is Chair of Brightwell and the JPM Chase UK Retirement Plan.

Denise grew up on a farm in Canada and has a BA from Carleton University. She left Canada in 1985 to complete an MBA at INSEAD and subsequently pursued a career in banking at Salomon Brothers, Chase Manhattan and IBJ.

Carlos works at the Policy and Advisory team of the FCA’s ESG Division as a Senior ESG Specialist. He previously worked as a consultant for Brunswick Group advising companies on ESG strategy and communications issues.

Prior to that, he was a financial journalist writing for Responsible Investor, The Accountant, and International Accounting Bulletin, among other newswires. 

Eugenie is the Earth Lead at Aviva Investors. She carries out research and engagement on environmental issues, and is responsible for the Natural Capital Transition Fund. Eugenie was part of Greenpeace International’s Forests team, where she worked on deforestation driven by palm oil, pulp & paper, cattle and soy. 

Previously, she spent fourteen years as a sustainability consultant advising major international companies, including FTSE100s,  on their social, ethical, and environmental strategies and performance.

Prior to consulting, Eugenie worked with EIRIS on the creation of FTSE4Good in 2001, following an MSc in Business and Environment at Imperial College, London. She started her career as a strategy consultant with Bain & Company in London and Johannesburg, following a degree in Geography at Oxford University where she specialised in the history of climate change.

David joined Carbon Growth Partners in October 2022. David spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs, where he worked in the Securities Division as a Partner Managing Director.

In 2014, he co-founded Barbon Advisors LLP, a corporate advisory boutique, and later joined Deutsche Bank’s Global Equities business. 

David, who hails from Australia, has a background in farming from his family’s operation in northwestern New South Wales and is now focused on helping to address climate change through a focus on natural capital and carbon markets.

Carolyn is a partner with global law firm, Pinsent Masons. She is also head of the London office of Pinsent Masons.  

A specialist pensions lawyer for over 30 years, Carolyn has supported her corporate, trustee and provider clients through many seismic changes in the industry, alongside her busy practice of advising on numerous and varied day-to-day legal and regulatory issues.    

At Pinsent Masons, she led the national pensions practice for nine years, until stepping aside from that role in late 2021 to devote more time to ESG work. This has been an area of interest for many years – especially in relation to climate and diversity – where her work has included collaborations with Leeds University on a research report in 2016 relating to the scope of trustee fiduciary duties in the context of climate change and with the Fawcett Society on female consumer engagement. She advises a number of trustee boards on their TCFD reporting, including advising on the governance needed to substantiate the reporting and minimise reputational and litigation risk.  

Carolyn is a regular conference speaker and media commentator, including for BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 Live and BBC News. Carolyn is also a member of the PLSA’s Policy Board and of Business in the Community’s London Board  

Beyond pensions, Carolyn is a keen walker, a long-time member of the London Philharmonic Choir and sits on the board of theatre company, Paines Plough. 

Back in 2003, my business partner, Vincent Franklin and I were working in a marketing agency, selling stuff that people wanted, like beach holidays and fancy trainers. But then we read about the ‘pensions time bomb’. We were fascinated. How had this happened and why wasn’t it being talked about in a way that was helpful to ordinary people?

We’d stumbled on our mission – to cajole the pensions industry into making long-term savings more meaningful to more people. To challenge the way the industry saw their customers – people who’d never get their heads around the complexities of pensions.

We’re still some way off where we need to be when it comes to helping people make better decisions about how they’re going to live after they stop working. But old barriers are falling and things are beginning to come together; digital first, the application of behavioural science, the binning of jargon, emotional connection, encouraging a two-way dialogue, apps that connect pension investment with the money in your wallet, providers with a consumer brand mentality and the realisation that pension money isn’t in a vault in Switzerland but is invested in the real world people care about.

Diandra is Head of Responsible Investment at Nest. She has been at Nest for 13 years and is responsible for the delivery and implementation of Nest’s Responsible Investment approach, ensuring it factors in material, environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities. She also makes sure Nest fulfils its role as a responsible steward of members’ assets through voting and engagement in order to deliver the best financial outcomes for members. 

Diandra has 20 years of investment experience including at Nedgroup Investments and Russell Investments. She is the Co-Chair of the 30% Club UK Investor Group, and is a founding member of the newly launched Asset Owner Diversity Charter. 

Diandra holds a BA (Hons) in Business Studies and French from Queen Mary University of London and IMC. 

Nick Spencer is a Founder at Gordian Advice and a Senior Consultant at Milliman. He is an award-winning thought leader with over 30 years of risk and investment experience. Nick helps clients develop practical capabilities for the challenges of tomorrow. More specifically, he leverages systems thinking to identify resilience-building and opportunity-making pragmatic actions and thus helps create solutions for a world at risk. 

Nick is the author of Accounting for Sustainability’s Nature-Risk guide. He regularly contributes to The Actuary, the IFoA Blog and papers for Milliman.

Nick has been an early proponent of integrating Biodiversity risks. He received a President’s Award for helping develop the IFoA’s Biodiversity Policy and has been an expert witness to the UK Parliament’s Environment Audit Committee. 

Nick is an advocate for aligning the asset management industry with a broader societal purpose; he recently co-authored a paper on Climate Change Inequalities. 

Jon is an Investment Manager for the Environmental strategy at Jupiter Asset Management. He manages the Jupiter Ecology Fund (Unit Trust); its SICAV version (the Jupiter Global Ecology Growth Fund); and the Jupiter Green Investment Trust. 

Jon joined Jupiter in 2009 as an analyst in Jupiter’s Sustainability and Governance team, with dedicated responsibilities for the Environmental Solutions funds, as well as working with other fund management teams to integrate analysis of environmental and social factors into their investment processes. 

In 2014, Jon became a dedicated investment analyst for the Environmental Solutions funds, progressing from thematic analysis to fundamental stock analysis, portfolio construction and management. 

Before joining Jupiter, Jon worked at Forum for the Future, a non-profit organisation that works in partnership with business, government and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future. 

Jon has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London, and a BA in Economics and History from Oxford University. 

Ambrogio Zanzi, PhD in agroecology, is currently working at Morningstar Sustainalytics as Methodology Manager, Biodiversity, focused on developing Sustainalytics’ offering related to biodiversity loss and nature-related risks.