A Sustainable Future

What’s at stake for hedge funds in the path to net zero? Jason Mitchell talks to Keith Guthrie, Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Cardano, about the role of short selling in sustainable investing, how to incorporate hedge funds and derivatives into net zero strategies, and why it’s vital we distinguish economic risk materiality from real world impact.

Keith Guthrie is the Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Cardano and a member of its Sustainability Steering Committee and Investment Committee. Keith is also co-lead of the IIGCC Derivatives and Hedge Fund Working Group where he oversaw the Derivatives and Hedge Funds Discussion Paper. Keith’s primary focus at Cardano is on Investment Philosophy and Frameworks, and Sustainable Investing, with oversight of the Manager Research and LDI teams. Prior to joining Cardano, Keith worked at GAM managing a variety of multi-asset and hedge fund portfolios. 

Is market-driven short termism a convenient scapegoat? Jason Mitchell talks to Professor Mark J. Roe, Harvard Law School, about why short-termism may not be the problem it’s purported to be, how the narrative around short-termism has evolved over the past 30 years, and the potential policy solutions.

Biography

Mark J. Roe is a professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches corporate law and corporate bankruptcy. He is the author of Missing the Target: Why Stock Market Short-Termism Is Not the Problem (Oxford, 2022), and one of the most prominent voices in the short-termism debate. He’s also author of Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance (Princeton, 1994), Political Determinants of Corporate Governance (Oxford, 2003) and Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization (Foundation, 2014).

Will the energy transition — now complicated by the drive to diversify energy sources away from Russia — lead to a full-blown energy crisis? Listen to Jason Mitchell talk to Rob West, CEO of Thunder Said Energy, about what’s at stake for the energy complex as we begin this diversification, the first and second order impacts of the conflict, and the trade-offs that we may face between energy security, decarbonisation and price affordability.

How does sustainable finance regulation represent a sea change for investors? Listen to Jason Mitchell talk to Alain Deckers, European Commission Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA), about greenwashing, enforcement, materiality, regulatory harmonisation and how the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Strategy is bringing transparency to the ESG space.

Alain Deckers is the newly-appointed Head of the Asset Management Unit within the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union or DG-FISMA. He was the Vice-Chairman of the EFRAG European Lab Steering Group. With over 20 years of experience at the European Commission, Alain has been responsible for policy reviews and policy development in areas including trade in goods, environmental policy, public procurement and financial services regulation. 

 * The views set out in this podcast are those of Alain and not the official position of the European Commission, nor the views of individual Commissioners or other officials of the European Commission.

Why is extreme heat the “silent killer” in climate change? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Dr. Eleni Myrivili, Chief Heat Officer for the city of Athens, Greece, about what the impact of heat stress means; how cities around the world are addressing it from a policy perspective and why it’s likely we’ll see more of these positions and more intervention going forward.

Dr. Eleni Myrivili is the Chief Heat Officer for the city of Athens, Greece. She designs, leads, and promotes heat adaptation programs that protect people at risk while building better urban environments, in Athens and beyond. From 2014 to 2019, she served as Athens’ Deputy Mayor for Urban Nature and Climate Resilience pioneering multimillion-euro programs in equitable blue and green infrastructure development. She is also senior advisor and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Arsht-Rockefeller Resilience Center which she joined in the summer of 2020.

How are multilateral development banks leaning into sustainable finance? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Heike Reichelt, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainable Finance at the World Bank Treasury, about what the World Bank is doing to drive socio-environmental impact; how multilateral development banks are reshaping their climate-related investments post-COP 26; and why it’s vital that programmes like the World Bank and IDA exist to support the development goals of middle- and lower-income countries.

Find the full transcript of this episode here: https://www.man.com/maninstitute/a-sustainable-future-podcast

Heike Reichelt is Head of Investor Relations and Sustainable Finance at the World Bank Treasury. Heike is responsible for managing relationships with bond investors, rating agencies and the financial media, and developing new bond products. She has more than 20 years of experience in finance – including with the World Bank Treasury's Reserves Advisory Management Program and at KfW, the German development bank. Heike was recognized for her role in building sustainable capital markets as the 2017 recipient of the prestigious Joan Bavaria Award.

The World Bank Treasury manages the funding programs for the World Bank--otherwise known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or IBRD--and the International Development Association or IDA.

Is this latest energy shock a one-off event or a harbinger of more energy crises to come? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Alex Grant, Equinor’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and UK Country Manager, the energy transition; the trade-offs that we may face between security of supply, price volatility and affordability; and the emerging energy technologies like blue and green hydrogen.

Alex Grant is Equinor’s Senior Vice President of Business Development Origination and Execution as well as its UK Country Manager. Alex joined Equinor from Jefferies in 2017. His background is in investment banking where he worked on M&A and financing transactions over the past 20 years in the energy sector. 

Find the full transcript of this episode here: www.man.com/maninstitute/a-sustainable-future-podcast

How is climate finance reshaping COP negotiations? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, Senior Director for Climate Finance to US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, the most consequential outcomes of COP26; how to think about US domestic political dynamics around climate change; and why the financial sector is fundamental in the transition to a net zero global economy.

Leonardo was previously the global director of the Sustainable Finance Center at the World Resources Institute, where he led a team working to promote the flow of public and private finance to environmentally-sustainable activities, including climate adaptation and mitigation. During the Obama Administration, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Environment in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere. Prior to that, he served as Director of the Office of Policy at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is co-author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption.

When central bank policies are driven by their primary mandates, is there a case that these mandates should expand to incorporate the systemic risk that is climate change? And how will increasingly extreme climate events force policymakers’ actions or limit the monetary policy space available to central bank institutions?

 Emanuel Moench, Head of Research at the Deutsche Bundesbank, joins Jason Mitchell to discuss the intersection of climate change and monetary policy; what central banks are doing to integrate climate risk in their macroeconomic models; and why it’s vital we continue to examine how climate change could impact the financial system.

Read the full transcript of the episode here.

Biography

Commissioner Emanuel Moench is the Head of Research at Deutsche Bundesbank, Professor of Economics at Goethe University Frankfurt and co-chair of the recent ECB Strategy Review Occasional Paper: Climate change and monetary policy in the euro area. Prior to joining the Bundesbank, Emanuel was a Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His research focuses on the intersection of macroeconomics and finance and has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Monetary Economics among others. Emanuel received the Journal of Finance’s Amundi Smith Breeden First Prize in 2015 and the European Economic Association's Young Economist Award in 2008. 

How is regulatory change reshaping ESG investing? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Commissioner Allison Herren Lee of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, about the SEC’s evolving views around disclosure and materiality; its enforcement efforts; and the need to work towards greater harmonisation given the multitude of global disclosure frameworks.

Find the full transcript of the episode here.

Jason Mitchell, Co-Head Responsible Investment, Man Group:

If there’s a predominant theme in sustainable investing right now, it’s regulation. And in the broadest sense, regulation is taking on a number of forms: from driving the transition to a low carbon economy to reporting on the impacts of biodiversity; from enforcing anti-greenwashing protections to even steering private sector investment.

 It’s also clear that we’re talking about different global regulatory approaches that will increasingly need to harmonise. While the EU’s legislation-driven approach has already delivered a number of investor frameworks, the US SEC’s regulatory approach to climate and ESG is evolving under the new Biden administration. In my mind, this provides a fascinating view of the arguments for how to world-build around issues like disclosure, materiality and enforcement.

 And for followers of the regulatory discussion, you can’t have missed the incredibly thoughtful speeches and statements delivered by the US SEC Commissioners. Their views don’t necessarily align ideologically, but they always prove provocative and push the discussion forward.

 One of the views I always look forward to reading is from Commissioner Allison Herren Lee. Her writing examines many of the fundamental elements of ESG through the prism of case law, and she is not afraid to challenge its myths and misconceptions.

 It's why I’m so excited to have Commissioner Lee on the podcast. We talk about the SEC’s evolving views around disclosure and materiality; its enforcement efforts; and the need to work towards greater harmonisation given the multitude of global disclosure frameworks.

More about Commissioner Allison Herren Lee:

Commissioner Allison Herren Lee was appointed and sworn into the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019. While Commissioner Lee served as Acting Chair of the Commission by President Biden earlier this year, she was responsible for establishing the Climate and ESG Enforcement Taskforce. She brings to the SEC over two decades of experience as a securities law practitioner. Commissioner Lee served for over a decade in various roles at the SEC, including as counsel to Commissioner Kara Stein, and as Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement’s Complex Financial Instruments Unit.