The world is working to meet ambitious environmental, social and governance targets in the form of the Paris Agreement and the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals. It's clear that banks will play a central role in financing the changes needed to meet these goals. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we talk with Karen Fang, Global Head of Sustainable Finance at Bank of America, about how one of the largest U.S. banks is approaching sustainability challenges. In the episode, Karen discusses the bank's goal of deploying and mobilizing $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030, how Bank of America is working to align SDG and ESG goals, and steps the bank is taking to meet its own net zero goal. She also talks about the new climate disclosure proposal from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the difficulty of measuring and managing Scope 3 emissions. "For us, as a bank, the biggest challenge is Scope 3 because that's our entire supply chain and value chain," Karen says. "It really takes all of our clients that we lend money to and invest in to work with us on a credible transition plan to transition to net zero so our financing and investment emissions — which is the biggest contributor of our Scope 3 emissions — can be neutralized over time." Listen to our recent episode on the SEC’s climate disclosure proposal here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/unpacking-implications-of-the-sec-s-proposed-climate-disclosure-rule Register for the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/sp-global-sustainable1-summit?utm_medium=social&utm_source=podcast&utm_content=ESGInsiderAd We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Bank of America

In 2022, the ESG Insider podcast is bringing you a series of interviews with some of the world’s largest asset managers, owners and financial institutions. In this episode, we hear from the largest pension fund in the U.S. — the California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS. We speak to Simiso Nzima, managing investment director of global equity at CalPERS. The conversation focused on five vital sustainability topics — executive pay and its link to ESG performance; board diversity; climate risk; the lack of standardization in ESG metrics; the SEC’s new proposal on climate-related disclosures; and finally, the debate about divestment versus engagement. To listen to our interview with BlackRock: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-scenes-with-blackrock-how-the-worlds/id1475521006?i=1000554510594  To listen to our interview with State Street Global Advisors: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-street-global-advisors-exec-on-climate-accountability/id1475521006?i=1000551552556  We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Getty Images

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently unveiled a long-anticipated climate disclosure rulemaking proposal. The proposed rule, which is now open for comment, would require companies to disclose certain climate-related information ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to expected climate risks to transition plans.   In this episode of ESG Insider, we explore the potentially wide-reaching implications for investors, companies and for climate disclosure globally.  To help us understand the SEC's proposal as it relates to audit and attestation requirements, we talk with Maura Hodge, who is IMPACT and ESG Audit Leader at professional services firm KPMG. We also learn about the challenges of measuring Scope 3 indirect emissions from our colleague Dr. James Salo, who heads environmental research & ESG modeling at S&P Global Sustainable1. And to explore legal implications surrounding the proposal, we talk with Mellissa Duru, special counsel at law firm Covington & Burling and co-vice chair of the firm's ESG practice. Mellissa previously worked at the SEC in its Corporate Finance Division and as a lead adviser to former Commissioner Kara Stein on the SEC's ESG-related regulatory policy. We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: S&P Global Sustainable1 

Pollution, over-fishing, coral bleaching and the impact of climate change — the oceans are clearly in trouble. Over the past decade, many more nature-based projects have gotten the support of green financing mechanisms, such as green bonds, but little of that new money has benefited the ocean economy. To help fix that financing gap between the terrestrial and marine worlds, some banks are experimenting with a new type of financing instrument known as a blue bond. The first such instrument was issued in October 2018, enabling the island nation of Seychelles to offload a portion of its debt in return for increased marine protection. The deal stabilized Seychelle’s debt position, while boosting investment in the local marine economy. Since then, half a dozen other countries or banks have issued blue bonds, including the World Bank, the Bank of China and the country of Belize. In this episode we speak to Ramzi Issa, a managing director at Swiss bank Credit Suisse, who helped arrange the recent Belize blue bond, which raised $364 million. Part of that money was used to restructure Belize’s debt and part of it is allocated for marine conservation. As Ramzi says, "You're effectively creating funding for these projects through debt relief. So that was kind of a key feature of the transaction when [investors] participated." For now, blue bonds remain a niche market. But they join other innovative efforts to increase ocean investment flows. In July 2021, for example, we interviewed the marine explore Jacques Cousteau’s grandson, Philippe, who is also working to bring the oceans to ESG investors. Listen to the episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-cousteaus-grandson-is-bringing-oceans-to-esg-investors/id1475521006?i=1000527653970 Both blue bonds and other form of sustainable financing for the oceans could get more attention during the U.N. biodiversity conference known as COP15 being held in China in late April and early May. Correction: This episode was updated to correct a reference to Credit Suisse, which is a Swiss bank. We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Getty Images

In his 2022 letter to CEOs, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink wrote: “Divesting from entire sectors – or simply passing carbon-intensive assets from public markets to private markets – will not get the world to net zero. And BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy.”  In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we’re talking to the world’s largest asset manager about its approach to engaging with companies, including those in carbon-intensive sectors. We interview Victoria Gaytan, Vice President at BlackRock Investment Stewardship, the team responsible for engaging with companies and for proxy voting on clients’ behalf.   Victoria tells us about BlackRock’s engagement priorities for 2022, and what to expect from the upcoming proxy season. She also describes how the firm’s expectations of corporate boards are evolving on a range of ESG issues, from diversity to climate change to executive compensation.   “We look to boards to have a clear understanding of how executive leadership instills the company's strategy and purpose into day-to-day operations, and how it seeks to ensure that corporate culture is experienced as intended across workforce and the company's key stakeholders,” Victoria tells us.  We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com).  Photo credit: BlackRock Inc.

Companies have two options going forward: transform or be transformed, according to a Feb. 28, 2022, report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Companies can either make transformational changes now that will help them be resilient to the physical impacts of climate change in the future, or they can continue to be reactive and wait until climate change forces them to transform at an even greater cost, the IPCC finds. In this episode of ESG Insider, we talk with one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, Dr. Edward Carr, who is also Director of the International Development, Community and Environment Department at Clark University. He was a lead author of the chapter in the IPCC report about climate resilient development pathways, which outlines the role companies and investors can play in adaptation. The good news, according to Ed, is that companies are well-placed to develop longer-term adaptation plans and find new opportunities for transformation. At the same time, companies cannot do it alone. Governments, the private sector and the public must all work together to adapt to climate change and lower emissions. Listen to our episode on the IPCC's August 2021 Group I report on the scientific basis for climate change here: https://soundcloud.com/esginsider/in-fighting-climate-change We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Getty Images

Ahead of International Women’s Day, we’re looking at how the U.K. is moving the needle on gender diversity in corporate boardrooms. Many countries have mandatory quotas for the minimum number of women on corporate boards. The U.K., in contrast, adopted a voluntary approach to improve gender balance in the business world. Has it worked?  In one important sense, yes: Nearly 40% of board seats at the U.K.’s top 100 companies are now filled by women, and notable gains have also been made at the board level of the U.K.’s 350 largest companies, according to a new report. However, there are still very few women CEOs or CFOs in the U.K., and only a third of leadership roles are held by women.  In this week’s episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we speak to Denise Wilson, Chief Executive of the FTSE Women Leaders Review, which published the report in February. Wilson describes how the decision to routinely and openly publish data naming and shaming companies that fall short of suggested gender-balance targets has acted as a nudge, persuading more businesses to appoint female board directors to meet growing investor and societal expectations on diversity.   To read more about gender diversity at global companies: https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/featured/women-ceos-covid   To read more about gender diversity at U.S. companies: https://www.capitaliq.spglobal.com/web/client?auth=inherit#news/article?id=65743394&KeyProductLinkType=6     To read S&P Global Sustainable1 research on corporate diversity, equity and inclusion policies: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/csa/yearbook/articles/progress-toward-corporate-diversity-requires-more-than-ticked-boxes-and-token-hires    To subscribe to our new newsletter, The Social Equity & Impact Review: https://spgi-mkto.spglobal.com/Subscribe-The-Social-Equity--Impact-Review.html   We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com).  Photo credit: Getty Images

If you listened to our bonus episode of the ESG Insider podcast last week, you know we were on the ground attending GreenBiz, one of the largest sustainability conferences in the U.S. that brought together about 1,300 sustainability professionals. A big theme we heard at the event is that sustainability is accelerating rapidly — and that change is especially pronounced in the evolving landscape for standard-setting bodies and disclosure regulations. At the conference, we sat down with one of those standard setters to discuss the big developments afoot: Katie Schmitz Eulitt, Director of Investor Relationships at the Value Reporting Foundation, formerly the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, or SASB. "There's excitement about the harmonization that is happening in this space and maybe a little frustration about, 'well, why can't we just get it done now — why do we have to wait?'" Katie says. "But I think we've come so far so fast that some of us are kind of pinching ourselves." We also talk with Kristen Sullivan, who is Sustainability and ESG Services Leader at Deloitte. Kristen moderated a panel at the conference titled "The SEC Homes in on ESG," and in the episode she tells us what to expect in the near term from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission when it comes to climate and human capital management disclosure rules. "It's a matter of when, not if, the regulators are really putting that definition around disclosure expectations," Kristen tells us. And to hear what all these changes look like in practice for companies, we sat down with Jaclyn Allen, Director of Sustainability at fashion company Guess. "The investor community is really concerned about climate, and they want to know that the company that they're investing in has a long-term view for the business as a whole," she says. S&P Global Sustainable1 was a sponsor of the GreenBiz conference. Listen to the bonus episode, featuring an interview with GreenBiz Group Chariman and Co-Founder Joel Makower: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bonus-episode-a-sneak-peek-at-greenbiz-one-of/id1475521006?i=1000551417128 We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.white@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Getty Images

State Street Global Advisors, the world's third-largest provider of exchange-traded funds, is expecting more action and transparency from companies in 2022 on climate change and social issues – and it wants to use its influence to drive that change. "We view divestment as the last resort," says Karen Wong, who is Global Head of ESG and Sustainable Investing at State Street Global Advisors. "We do believe overall that it's absolutely important to have the voting and engagement in our toolkit to drive changes." In 2022, the ESG Insider podcast will be talking with large asset managers around the world about their policies and practices on key ESG topics because they can play a critical role in pressing companies to review and address those issues. In this episode, Karen outlines some of the circumstances under which State Street Global Advisors would vote against a company's directors, the new expectations the asset manager is setting for climate and workforce diversity-related disclosures, and how the firm is handling evolving regulations, including the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, or SFDR., Listen to our related podcast episode that explores what SFDR is and why it's important: https://soundcloud.com/esginsider/eu-revolutionizes We'd love to hear from you! To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.white@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: State Street Global Advisors

In this bonus episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we're taking you on the road to the big U.S. sustainability conference GreenBiz22. We sit down with Joel Makower, who is Chairman and Co-Founder of GreenBiz Group, which produces the three-day event bringing together sustainability professionals from many of the largest U.S. companies. The event is an opportunity to take the pulse of the corporate world on topics ranging from net zero to biodiversity to social equity. As Joel tells us in the interview, it's also a chance to hear how a diverse group of companies across sectors are handling the explosive growth in the ESG movement. "All of a sudden, this function within companies that used to be kind of a backwater — sustainability — is now sitting there on Wall Street and sitting there in the boardroom in some fashion in most companies, and that's created a whole new dynamic. So it's a very exciting moment," Joel says. It's also a "be careful what you wish for" moment, Joel says: "This is the moment where all of a sudden, everybody wants a piece of you." Tune in to the podcast next week for more interviews on the ground at the conference. We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.white@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com). Photo credit: Getty Images