Climate Change: The Path to Carbon Net Zero

Mike runs a responsible investment advisory firm, Ario Advisory. With a background in investment management, governance, pensions and insurance, much of his work is concerned with the financial risks of climate change. He works across the investment sector with asset owners, investment managers, policymakers, regulators, investment consultants and NGOs.

Among his roles, he represents IFoA (actuaries) on the Sustainable Finance Advisory Council at the Oxford Smith School and sits on the WHEB Asset Management independent Advisory Committee. He has recently left the Brunel (LGPS) board, where he was a NED (chairing Audit&Risk, more recently Remco), and he was Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee for their 2018 Green Finance inquiry.

Jim is a Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London, with research interests in energy, climate change and technological innovation. His current main role is as Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III for the 6th assessment cycle. He was Research Director of the UK Energy Research Centre 2004-12 and Director of the Policy Studies Institute 1998-2004. He has operated at the interface between research, policy-making and business throughout his career.

He was a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change from its inception in 2008 until 2018. He is currently chairing Scotland’s Just Transition Commission. Until June 2017, he was President of the UK Energy Institute. He was awarded a CBE for services to sustainable energy in 2013 and an OBE for services to sustainable transport in 2004.

Peter joined Gresham House in June 2020, and is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Infrastructure division, and a fund manager of BSIF. Peter is also a member of the Gresham House Sustainable Investment Committee. Prior to Gresham House, he led the investment and exit of the Sustainable Infrastructure focused Environmental Capital Fund (ECF) for SEP, one of Europe’s most successful VC firms. He has over 20 years of public and private equity investment and funds management experience, and has invested into and exited over 170 infrastructure and technology companies across all sectors with an equity value of over £1.3bn and capital value of c.£5bn. 

Prior to SEP, where ECF achieved top-quartile returns, Peter was Co-Founder of renewables developer and investor EIDC; Team Head of Secondary Infrastructure and Renewables at Land Securities Trillium; a partner of the PPP/PFI focused private equity fund SMIF (now Semperian), which exited with a top-quartile return; and a founding member of Challenger’s infrastructure team. Peter has had board member roles on over 50 invested companies. He is also a judge and mentor of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Accelerator and the Clean Tech Challenge. He is an active investor in early-stage sustainability companies. 

Peter holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) with Honours, and two further Bachelor degrees of Finance (BFin) and Commerce (BCom), all from the University of Adelaide, and is a graduate of CISL’s Business Sustainability Management program.

Jamie is a director 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 Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, 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.

Rebecca joined Gresham House in July 2020 in the newly created role of Sustainable Investment Director.

Previously, Rebecca worked as an ESG Strategist at Univest where she was responsible for setting a leading sustainability framework across Univest’s investment approach, as well as setting their sustainability objectives for the next five years. Prior to this, she worked at Hymans Robertson as an Investment Consultant and Responsible Investment (RI) adviser where she designed and developed their client RI proposition whilst working closely with a range of clients to enhance their approaches to RI and ESG.

Rebecca was shortlisted for the Professional Pensions 2019 Rising Star Advisor of the Year award for her work in sustainable investment and has raised awareness of sustainable investing by regularly speaking at industry events and writing a number of thought leadership pieces on this topic.

Rebecca holds a BSc in Mathematics with Economics from the University of Exeter, is a qualified actuary and has completed the Investment Management Certificate.

Julie researches risks and opportunities associated with transitioning to a low-carbon economy and works closely with investors across the investment platform to translate research findings into actionable investment ideas. Her research focus includes changes associated with carbon pricing and other policies designed to accelerate the low-carbon transition, consumer behavior and technological disruption, and litigation and disclosure requirements.

 Julie also works with portfolio managers to enhance portfolio-level climate risk measurement, including carbon emissions footprinting and scenario analysis, and to implement our clients’ long-term climate goals, such as alignment with the Paris Accord trajectory of below 2°C, to best meet their objectives. She has been involved in Wellington’s physical climate risk research partnership with Woodwell Climate Research Center since its inception and leads bespoke research projects for one of our asset owner partners. 

Prior to her transition to climate research, Julie joined the ESG Research Team as a research associate in 2017, where she had research and engagement responsibilities covering the financials sector ex North America. She joined Wellington Management in 2015 as a business associate in Investment Product & Fund Strategies, working with the Competitive Intelligence and Wellington Alternative Investments teams.

 Julie earned her BS in economics & finance and global sustainability, summa cum laude, from Bentley University (2015). She is a CFA charter holder and a member of both the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of the UK.

Marian is Global Head of Pensions 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.

David has worked in DWP since 2003, and in workplace pensions policy since 2014. In recent years, he has delivered regulations on the charge cap; cost, charge and investment disclosure; the introduction of tailored risk warnings in personal pensions with Guaranteed Annuity Rates; accelerating and removing barriers to DC consolidation; clarifying and strengthening trustees’ duties around ESG; and climate change risk in the Pension Schemes Act 2021. He currently leads on DWP’s work to embed climate governance and TCFD into pension scheme decision making, and its wider work on stewardship and responsible investment.

Jeff has over 30 years’ experience in public sector pensions and in 2011, he took on the role of Head of Pensions at the Local Government Association, where he is responsible for policy development for the Local Government and Teachers schemes, advises on the Firefighters scheme and leads for LGA on European pensions issues.

Sophie is an internationally recognised expert in climate change law and litigation, human rights and corporate management of climate risk. She leads ClientEarth’s Climate Accountability Initiative, which focuses on strategic litigation and other legal interventions to drive governments and companies towards reducing their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

She is the lead lawyer in the ground-breaking Torres Strait Climate Case, which was the first climate case to be brought against the Australian Government on human rights grounds. She also leads the team’s work on corporate accountability for greenhouse gas emissions, and financial sector stewardship on climate risk with high emitting companies. She regularly comments on and writes about climate change law and litigation in a range of forums.

Ashby is the Executive and Research Director of the Stanford Global Projects Center. He was named by CIO Magazine as one of the most influential academics on institutional investing. He is a member of the Future of Finance Council at the CFA Institute. Monk is also the Head of Institutions at Addepar and co-founder of Long Game Savings and FutureProof Technologies. He holds a Doctorate in Economic Geography from Oxford University, a Master’s in International Economics from the Universite de Paris I – Pantheon Sorbonne and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Princeton University.

Jennifer joined Solactive AG in October 2020 in the Strategic Initiatives department. Her responsibilities include driving sustainability initiatives in product development and client engagements as well as promoting internal ESG initiatives.

Before her role at Solactive, she was a portfolio manager in the Quantitative Strategies team at Invesco. She worked on the integration of ESG criteria into multi-factor strategies and the development of dedicated sustainability solutions. 

Jennifer holds a Master’s degree (M.Sc.) in Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and is also a CFA Charterholder.

Bill has been an independent professional trustee for 20 years. Currently, he is chair of two pension schemes – Amtico and the Airbus UK scheme. Both schemes are hybrid DB and DC, and Airbus is still open to future accrual. He has qualified as a company secretary and as a financial adviser. His background is that he spent a period in the RAF after which he worked for US and European aerospace businesses. His initial pension trusteeships were with GEC and British Aerospace.

Aaron leads on impact investment at the Church Commissioners for England, the £8.7bn endowment fund of the Church of England. Aaron’s responsibilities include identifying impact investment opportunities as well as portfolio impact measurement and management, with a particular focus on the fund’s alignment to its 2050 net zero emissions goal as part of the UN-convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. The fund was awarded IPE’s first award for best in Impact Investing in 2020, and a whitepaper outlining their approach can be found here.

Prior to the Commissioners, Aaron was an investment consultant at PwC, developing a specific focus on sustainable and impact investment following backing from the firm’s internal innovation incubator.

Ben is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Cushon, and has created our core customer proposition, strategy, and business plan. He has personally overseen the design and development of our mobile and web applications, and established many of our longstanding core strategic partnerships. Ben is an actuarial consultant by background, with over 20 years’ experience in financial services.

Nick joined Redington in September 2015, as a Director in the Manager Research team. Now, as Head of Manager Research, he leads a talented team who help institutional and wealth management clients around the world allocate to the funds that get them closer to their strategic goals. Nick is also chair of Redington’s Responsible Investment Committee and a voting member of Redington’s Investment Strategy Committee. He works directly with several of the firm’s clients in the UK and Europe. 

Nick began his investment career in 2000 at Schroders, where he worked on the Asia and Emerging Market equity teams, before moving into manager research roles at investment consultancy Stamford Associates, South African multi-manager Momentum Global Investment Management and US multi-manager SEI Investments.

Julius spent his executive career working with DC pensions in both the insurance and asset management industries. In his subsequent non-executive career, Julius has held a number of independent pension and investment governance roles. He was one of the founding trustee directors of NEST Corporation and chaired both its investment and risk committees.

Marek is the Head of Consultant Relations at Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM). He represents LOIM in front of the Global institutional investment consultants as well as having interaction with a range of large institutional investors, where he is frequently presenting on and explaining the LOIM sustainability credentials and offerings. 

He joined in May 2018, from Western Asset Management, where he was Head of UK Institutional Sales from 2014 to 2018.

Prior to that, he worked in consultant relations and direct institutional sales at Man/GLG Investments from 2011 to 2014 and head of consultant relations at Gartmore from 2007 to 2010. Marek was senior investment consultant at Aon Consulting Ltd from 1998 to 2007 and started his career at Sedgwick Noble Lowndes as an investment consultant in 1996.

Kaisie’s mission in life is to help financial institutions understand sustainability and their role in enabling the transition to a low carbon economy. She is currently the Climate Change Lead at Royal London, a commissioner at the Edinburgh Climate Commission, a fellow at the RSA and occasional lecturer at Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leaders.

Prior to working with Royal London, Kaisie was the Sustainable Investment Lead at Scottish Widows and has worked with Aegon, Lloyds Banking Group, RBS and Standard Life Investments.

Tommy is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of BeZero Carbon. Prior to launching the business, he worked as a policy and political communications adviser in London and Brussels for five years, specializing in green, finance and infrastructure policy.

He then spent 5-years as a research analyst at BofAML, starting as the UK equity strategist in London before moving to New York, where he served as the number 2 in the top ranked Global Investment Strategy team.

Peter has over 15 years’ investment experience and is responsible for setting investment strategy, implementing asset allocation decisions and providing portfolio oversight. Peter also leads TPT’s Responsible Investment activities.

He has a degree in Economics from the University of Exeter, and is a CFA charterholder.

Nick is the Head of Climate Solutions at LGIM. He joined in 2013 as a Fund Manager in LGIM’s Global Equity team, focused on energy and natural resources.

Prior to joining LGIM, he was an Investment Director for Developed Asia and Global Emerging Markets at Standard Life Investments. He previously worked for an emerging market focused hedge fund investing in equities, convertible bonds and distressed debt. He has also worked in a corporate advisory role and as a software developer.

Nick has a law degree (LLB.) and a Master’s in jurisprudence (MJur.), focused on securities law, from the University of Durham.

Georgia is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tumelo, a platform designed to engage members with the companies in their pension and to collect preferences on shareholder issues that members care about. Georgia studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge; has experience from across the sustainable investment sector including equity investment analysis at Jupiter, clean tech venture capital at IP Group and Business & Bio-diversity projects at Fauna and Flora International. She now runs a Bristol-based, financial technology start-up, with a mission to help all investors contribute to and benefit from a more sustainable investment system.

Dominic is a policy advisor in the COP26 Private Finance Hub at Her Majesty’s Treasury. This is a team of 20 people, supporting Mark Carney, in a mission to build a private finance system for net zero, and make climate change a part of every financial decision. His role on the team is to advance the work of the hub on portfolio alignment metrics He is the co-author of the upcoming TCFD technical paper on that subject, and is now helping to co-ordinate engagement on the recommendations of the paper.

Dominic previously worked at the Bank of England for nearly 5 years, in data analysis and in the resolution directorate. He holds an MSc in Central Banking & Financial Regulation from Warwick Business School.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) is one of Europe’s largest asset managers and a major global investor, with total assets under management of £1.3 trillion*. We work with a wide range of global clients, including pension schemes, sovereign wealth funds, fund distributors, retail investors and direct investors. 

Throughout the past 50 years, we have built our business through understanding what matters most to our clients and transforming this insight into valuable, accessible investment products and solutions. We provide investment expertise across the full spectrum of asset classes including fixed income, equities, multi-asset, real assets and cash. Our capabilities range from index-tracking, active and exchange-traded strategies to liquidity management and liability-driven risk management solutions.

* Source: LGIM internal data as at 31 December 2020. The AUM disclosed aggregates the assets managed by LGIM in the UK, LGIMA in the US and LGIM Asia in Hong Kong. The AUM includes the value of securities and derivatives positions.

Quietroom are here to make pensions more meaningful to more people.

We’re writers and strategists, supported by designers, developers and filmmakers. We’re on a mission to make pensions more meaningful to more people. Thanks to our work, people are better informed and better off. That’s exciting.

Pensions affect everybody’s future. But they’re hard to understand and even harder to love. They’re invisible and intangible – until you need them.            

That’s a problem for pension savers, because we can only make choices that leave us better off in the long-term if we understand those choices and what they mean for us. It’s a problem for pension providers, because we can’t reach the people whose lives we’re trying to improve if we talk in a way that makes them switch off. And it’s a problem for society too. We’ll only tackle big issues like the ageing population, the savings gap and the transition to a low-carbon economy if everyone feels confident asking questions, challenging assumptions and contributing ideas.

That’s why we approach pensions communication in the way we do. We want to encourage as many people as possible to join the conversation – so everyone can make better decisions about their future.