ESG Talks

This episode of ESG Talks features the perspectives of the environmental advocacy community in Washington, D.C. Courtney Taylor, a Partner at Cypress Group who focuses on environmental law and regulation, interviews the Environmental Defense Fund’s Senior Director for Strategic Planning, Elgie Holstein. Courtney and Elgie are both Washington insiders, having worked in the capital for years. Courtney held positions at the Environmental Defense Fund, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Interior, while Elgie served in various roles under President Clinton and worked as a senior adviser for energy during President Obama’s election campaign.

Courtney and Elgie discuss how the pandemic is affecting environmental policy priorities, their strategies for the 2020 election, and how the financial industry can help create a more sustainable world.

Our inaugural episode focuses on cybersecurity, a prominent governance risk within the ESG framework. Bill Cox, Global Head of Corporate, Financial and Government Ratings at KBRA interviews KBRA’s Chairman and founder, Jules Kroll, the pioneer of the modern investigations, intelligence, and corporate security industry.

“What we have today is we have more violations of privacy, we have more stealing, we have more involvements with nation-states—either directly or through proxies,” Kroll said. “That’s why it feels like there’s a lot more going on because there is a lot more going on.”