ESG Talks

In this episode, Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team speaks with Peter Giacone, Senior Managing Director, and Global Head of KBRA’s Insurance group. Peter and Emilie discuss a recent insurance headline: one of the largest home insurers in the U.S., State Farm, will stop offering new coverage in California because of increased catastrophe exposure. This news highlights the growing risks of climate change and increasingly severe weather events within the insurance sector. Peter also shares his perspective about possible longer-term trends.

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In this episode, Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team speaks with Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, Senior Managing Director and Head of KBRA’s Sovereigns ratings group. As KBRA has been monitoring and following trends in global environmental regulation, particularly developments in the EU and U.S., Joan and Emilie chat about the acceleration in global green industrial spending. Joan also provides the macroeconomic context and background information on the political economy as countries vie to win the green technology race. They touch on the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, the EU Green Deal, the EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS Act in both the U.S. and the EU.

In this episode, Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team, speaks with Gordon Kerr, KBRA’s Head of European Research, and Karim Nassif, a Senior Director on the European Project Finance and Infrastructure team. The three chat about a recent KBRA research piece, which provided an overview of the European Green Deal Industrial Plan. This research piece is the second report in KBRA’s series covering ESG regulatory updates in the EU. Gordon, Karim, and Emilie discuss the main policy proposals under the plan: the Net-Zero Industry Act, the European Hydrogen Bank, the Critical Raw Materials Act, and the reform of the electricity market design. They also discuss the practical challenges and potential credit implications of the EU’s proposed plans.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team, interviews Hamish Jacobs, Co-Founder of the Good Fuel Group. Hamish founded the Good Fuel Group in 2011 to provide sustainability advisory and capital raising services to support companies on their transformation from a model of extraction to one that supports the global low carbon transition. Hamish was previously Head of International Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at Didi, a Chinese company providing app-based transportation services to Asian and Latin American markets. Hamish also worked at Coca Cola China as the Director of Sustainability.

Hamish and Emilie discuss best practices for embedding sustainability into all aspects of a corporation and Hamish also shares corporate success stories in his 20+ year career in sustainability. This episode is in collaboration with KlimateNet, a peer-to-peer network that incentivizes and connects professionals working on projects that reduce or remove global greenhouse gas emissions.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer, chats with Shannon Doherty, the Volunteer Program Director of Partnerships for Parks, a private-public partnership between NYC Parks and City Parks Foundation. Partnerships for Parks supports and champions neighborhood volunteers by giving them the tools they need to advocate and care for their community parks and green spaces. KBRA has been a supporter of Partnerships for Parks for the past few years and every year on Earth Day KBRA employees volunteer to help revitalize a park in NYC. Pat and Shannon talk about how Partnerships for Parks’ work fits into the ESG movement and discuss KBRA’s upcoming Earth Day event.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Gordon Kerr, KBRA’s Head of European Research and Emilie Nadler from KBRA’s ESG team discuss a recent KBRA research report, “An Overview of the European Green Deal,” which is the first piece in a series focusing on ESG-related regulation in Europe. Gordon and Emilie discuss details of various policies included under the Green Deal including the EU Climate Law, Fit for 55, the Just Transition Fund, and the Sustainable Finance strategy, which includes the EU Taxonomy, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

In this special cross-over episode of ESG Talks, we’re featuring an episode from KBRA’s podcast series, Conversations in European Credit. Listen in as Emilie Nadler from the ESG team chats with KBRA’s Head of European Research, Gordon Kerr, and Killian Walsh from KBRA’s European ABS ratings team. The three discuss the increase in solar photovoltaic (PV) funding in Europe and the potential for the use of securitisation to support the green transition.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, Senior Managing Director, and head of KBRA’s Public Finance team, interviews Anne Coglianese, the Chief Resilience Officer of the City of Jacksonville, FL. Anne is Jacksonville’s first Chief Resilience Officer and has been in the role since its creation in 2021. Before joining Jacksonville city government, Anne held various roles focused on the environment and climate change including as the Coastal Resilience Program Manager for the City of New Orleans and the Special Assistant for Climate Preparedness for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In her Chief Resilience Officer role, Anne leads the development and implementation of resilience initiatives to ensure Jacksonville can adapt and thrive in the face of acute shocks and chronic stresses brought on by climate change.

Correction: Anne Coglianese has been in the role of Chief Resilience Officer since its creation in 2021, not 2019 as mentioned in the podcast.

In this episode of ESG Talks Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team interviews, Gordon Kerr. Gordon gives an overview of climate-related developments during COP27. The 27th annual conference of the parties, COP 27, concluded on Friday, November 18. This year’s event, held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, took place as many global challenges continue to unfold and become more severe including the Russia-Ukraine war, rising inflation, and fears over energy security. Gordon and Emilie talk about key takeaways from the proceedings including the tense discussions around international climate finance, icy relations between China and the U.S., and the fossil fuel interests present at COP27.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, a Director on KBRA’s ESG team, interviews Bill Shevlin, CEO of Net Zero Beyond. Net Zero Beyond is a platform that develops, finances, owns, and operates carbon neutral and carbon negative microgrids, and virtual power plants across the United States. The technologies Net Zero uses include energy storage, solar, wind, waste to energy, biodigesters, hydrogen, energy management software, fuel cells, electric vehicle chargers, hydrogen production, IoT devices and more. Net Zero serves residential and commercial markets as well as industrial, manufacturing, controlled environmental agriculture, and government markets.