ESG Talks

In this episode of ESG Talks, Andrea Torres Villanueva, an Associate on KBRA’s ESG team speaks with Bill Cox, Global Head of Corporate, Financial and Government Ratings, and Andrew Giudici, Global Head of Corporate, Project, and Infrastructure Finance. Bill and Andrew highlight findings from a recent KBRA research publication, “It Is Time to Measure the Real Impact of a Carbon Tax,” that details how corporations use internal carbon pricing, the challenges with carbon prices, and how regulatory efforts to reduce global emissions may impact a corporation’s financial performance.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Gordon Kerr, KBRA’s Head of European Research interviews Ken Egan, an Associate Director on KBRA’s Sovereigns team. Gordon and Ken give an overview of the European Union’s net-zero plans and delve into how the EU’s climate mitigation strategy may impact the credit profile of sovereigns in the region. They also discuss a recent Centre for European Reform research piece, highlighting the need for the EU to remove tariffs on environmental goods.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, Head of KBRA’s Sovereigns group interviews Representative Jake Auchincloss. Rep. Auchincloss is a Democrat from Massachusetts’ 4th congressional district and is currently serving his first term in Congress. He is the Vice-Chair of the House Financial Services Committee and a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. His areas of focus include infrastructure, housing, the life sciences, and energy policy. Joan and Congressman Auchincloss discuss the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was passed in November and talk about the future of the Build Back Better plan.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, a Senior Managing Director on KBRA’s Public Finance Team interviews Gavin Taves, the Climate and Energy Program Manager for the City of Chicago. In his role, Gavin focuses on built environment decarbonization policy for Mayor Lightfoot, program managing Retrofit Chicago (a voluntary building retrofit challenge) and the City’s benchmarking ordinance. Gavin also spearheads the industrial decarbonization strategy, which aims to bring industrial facilities into alignment with broader climate goals for the region. Further, Gavin is one of the architects of Chicago’s historic $188 million climate investment strategy, which will accelerate the City’s just transition while building community resilience to climate shocks and stressors. Karen and Gavin talk about Chicago’s vulnerability to climate change and how the city is working to mitigate its effects.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG team interviews Kim Kovacs, the newly appointed CEO of Santa Fe Farms. Santa Fe Farms is a fully integrated company leading the growth and development of the industrial hemp industry. Kim and Emilie discuss highlights from COP26 regarding climate mitigating technology and innovation and the role emerging industries, such as the industrial hemp industry, will play in the low carbon transition.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Andrea Torres Villanueva, an Associate on KBRA’s ESG Team interviews Gordon Kerr, Managing Director and KBRA’s Head of European Research. Gordon was in Glasgow, Scotland for the 26th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) and discusses with Andrea key takeaways from this year’s event.

In the last episode of the third season of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG Team, interviews Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer, and Van Hesser, KBRA’s Chief Strategist. As interest in ESG investing grows, financial market participants are increasingly interested in accessing better quality ESG information to make investment decisions and are also looking to rating agencies to understand the relevance of ESG to financial metrics and the risk of default. Pat, Van, and Emilie discuss KBRA’s approach to ESG integration in credit ratings and research.

“At KBRA, we believe most ESG issues that intersect with credit risk analysis are inherently management issues. For this reason we call our ESG approach in the corporates, financial institutions, and governments space ‘ESG Management.’ In the world of credit risk analysis ESG can’t be done as a simple scoring exercise – it requires thoughtful analysis of myriad, and often interconnected risk management issues. Our approach gives transparency into the real-world and into the dynamic risks that ESG presents to entities.” – Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer

In this episode of ESG Talks, Steve Weinstein, Chair of the Bermuda Business Development Authority, moderates a conversation between Jim Nadler, KBRA’s President and CEO, and Bermuda’s Minister of Finance, the Honorable Curtis L. Dickinson, JP, MP. Bermuda has a proven track record in balancing the needs of the business community with prudent policy under a unified regulatory system. Steve, Jim, and Minister Dickinson discuss the rise in ESG investing and how Bermuda’s culture of innovation has well positioned the country as the world’s center for climate risk finance.

“A commitment to sound and effective regulation, policies, and practices that promote good, ethical, and innovative businesses, and an appropriate partnership with industry to advance initiatives that can be mutually beneficial and [promote] the greater good, is a role the government sees as being very critical. Bermuda aims to become the world’s climate risk finance capital by addressing critical needs in key markets and closing the global protection gap, while creating new economic growth opportunities. It is our view that the climate risk finance space is an extension of what [Bermuda] already does very well.” - Bermuda Minister of Finance, the Honorable Curtis L. Dickinson

In this episode of ESG Talks, Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer, interviews Steven Gluckstern, the Chairman and CEO of Santa Fe Farms. Santa Fe Farms is a fully integrated company leading the growth and development of the industrial hemp industry. The company Santa Fe Farms spans the growth, transformation, and impact of industrial hemp into key wellness, chemical and physical ingredients and components which can be incorporated into thousands of products in categories including health, human and animal nutrition, agriculture, building materials, paper and packaging, plastics, and advanced carbon materials. Santa Fe Farms will be both a net carbon-negative business itself and an important source of offsets available to other enterprises seeking to reduce their carbon footprint to meet their ESG goals and/or regulatory requirements. Pat and Steven speak about the hemp industry’s potential the role might play in mitigating the effects of climate change across the globe, while also creating positive social impact.

“What we found out very quickly is that the real value of this plant may go way beyond the products one can make from it… Industrial hemp as we know it today sequesters as much carbon per acre as, for instance, an acre of rainforest. What became apparent to us [at Santa Fe Farms] was that as we look for nature-based solutions to the CO2 crisis, that one of those might well be hemp.” – Steven Gluckstern, Santa Fe Farms

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG Team, interviews Langston Emerson and Chris Brown from Mindset, a bipartisan public policy firm based in Washington, D.C. Their clients range from household names in financial services to key change makers in energy, insurance, trade, technology, and beyond. Over the years, Mindset has become known for its deep expertise in financial services policy.

“[There] has been a huge rise in the topic of ESG in public policy circles… Notably there’s been increased talk of ESG-focused regulation, especially from the SEC [but also] the president. President Biden has really pushed a lot of ESG topics to the forefront and that’s particularly true with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation.” – Chris Brown