 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining us here. I know that this is a topic of conversation, not just inside the Congress Center, but outside of it as well. ESG is clearly the buzzword. And I'm glad that we have four individuals here, four leaders who've spent a lot of their time, their bandwidth, and their capital working the needle on this one. So it's going to be good to have their points of view on where things currently stand out, what more needs to be done more importantly. In light of the tumultuous times that the global economy is faced with, there is a fair amount of turbulence and uncertainty. The expectation is that could this now set back goals of sustainable development? Could this set back the ESG agenda that a lot of corporations and governments were focusing on? Or could it, in fact, accelerate the move towards more cleaner energy, make those transitions happen sooner, and reduce the dependence on the old style of doing things? But there is limited fiscal resources that governments are dealing with. There is enough capital that the private sector is willing to deploy and use to try and ensure that we move forward and in addressing some of these problems. But it is a complex challenge. What has happened in the last few years, and especially here at the World Economic Forum, is putting together a metric of reporting, of putting together a framework that makes it easier for people to understand how to measure the outcomes of what is being done. And that's something that we are going to talk about here as part of this conversation as well. So let me introduce our panelists today. Joining me, Laura M. Chah, the chairman of the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing at Hong Kong, China. Thanks very much for joining us here. Laura Emanuel-Farber, chair of International Sustainability Standards Board IFRS Foundation of the UK. Alan Jope, the chief executive officer at Unilever. And Brian Monahan, the chairman and CEO of Bank of America. And of course, he's also the chair of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council. Laura, gentlemen, thanks very much for joining us here. Brian, let me start by asking you, since you were the early mover, as far as the Web's ESG IBC Council was concerned, do you fear that given the volatility and the turbulence of the global economy is faced with today, that we're going to see a setback or an acceleration on ESG? So thank you. And no, I don't feel there be a setback. And so we could stop with that answer or we can go more broadly. But the reality is that operating companies have made commitments along multiple dimensions. And so when a company makes a commitment, and their customers, their employees, their shareholders, their societies, they operate and see that commitment, you can't just say, oh, it's inconvenient right now. And so those commitments are long-standing. It goes to who the companies are and what they are. And so if you think about the International Business Council, over the last three years, we started developing metrics that we thought were common enough across industry, where material would cause the consolidation of the thought process of the multiple metrics. But more importantly, statements of what capitalism can do to solve what the world needs from us. The SDGs, the standard development goals, say this is what the world wants from us. We have a tagline in our advertising world, which I like the power to do. The world told us a number of years ago, 190 countries, whatever it was. So this is what we need. It takes $6 trillion to finance those a year. People have debates for six, eight, but some big number. And the only way you're going to do it is to take charity can't do it, not enough money. Wonderful, not enough money. Governments don't have the fiscal capacity. Capitalism has to do it. And stakeholder capitalism is the definition. The metrics measure that. They're against those SDGs. 140 companies adopting it. So how can they go backwards? They've told, they're in our annual report. They're in other pieces. How can they say, oh, there's a disruption we've got to walk? It goes to the core of who those companies are and how to do it in class with leadership over 50 years. It's all come together. So I don't see there's a way you can walk away from it, because your customers won't let you. Your employees won't want you. Your shareholders shouldn't, won't let you. And by the way, society won't let you. Well, I certainly hope that that is the case. And Alan, that's exactly what I want to talk to you about. How important is it that we now have this metric framework in place, that it is starting to influence customer behavior. It's starting to influence investor behavior as well. What are the changes that you've seen on that front? Well, look, it's been a torrid time for the world over the last two or three years. But one constant is that Unilever's investors have exhorted us to continue on the path of putting sustainability at the heart of our business model. And I think the reason that we're getting that feedback is for hard commercial purposes. Unilever's not an NGO. We're a commercial organization. And we're finding more and more evidence on, let me just pick three axes. Consumers, particularly young people, are making brand choices based on the social and environmental impact. Our sustainable brands that outperform on environmental or social contribution are growing much faster than the rest of our portfolio. Secondly, we've got to get out of this thought that sustainable business is more costly. It is in some places, but net we believe we've saved about 1.2 billion euros of cost by getting on to efficient energy early. And the third reason is the talent proposition. Try attracting people to join your organization if you're not clear on what you stand for. And so we are staying the course on sustainable business and a part of that is reporting non-financial metrics because we think it makes good sound business sense. It makes good sound business sense. And Laura, let me address that issue with you as well. You know, hopefully gone are the days when disclosures would be tucked away in companies, annual reports and nobody would care about them. Now they're front and center. They've been talked about, not just in rooms like this one, but as part of investor presentations, as part of shareholder commitments that are being made as well. What's the big change that you now foresee? We've come a long distance, but as you look down the road ahead, what is the big change that you now anticipate seeing? I think we started with disclosure. And for Hong Kong exchange, we started the journey in 2013 when we provide guidelines for listed companies to disclose their ESG policy, their ESG work, et cetera. And then we elevated to mandatory requirement. And that was in 2017. And what we need to do now, as exactly as you suggested, is to go beyond and to make those disclosure meaningful. We need, in order for the disclosure to be meaningful, we need to have harmonized standard. Right now, there's a plethora of different standards everywhere. Now I recognize that for different industry, there will be different matrix and different measurements, but it will be very good in terms of the work that ISSP is doing to bring out some standardized global measures and standards so that the disclosure to the investors, to the community would be measurable and clear and understandable. I think that's the mixed map. And that's what I wanna address with each one of you. And Emmanuel, I'll get you to address that first. You know, to Laura's point, that you've got a plethora of regulations across different sectors, across different jurisdictions, across different geographies, and perhaps it makes things harder. These might be well-intentioned, but it actually does the opposite. It makes things harder for business to be able to operate. Do you really see now the time for a global framework as far as measurement and reporting is concerned? The need for that is now. Thanks, Shirin, for asking. Yeah, I wouldn't have taken this job if I had thought otherwise, frankly. And to your question to Brian about the setback, I think that there is no setback. What was seen as important, but maybe not urgent, is now also becoming urgent. And so the need to adapt supply chains, the need to change the way we operate, the COVID and then the Ukraine situation have aggravated factors that are material for companies in their resilience and in their performance. And so the ability to have a language to share that with their investors and for the people that provide capital to these companies in an understanding of what matters now, in the mid and in the long term, has never been as important and urgent as now. And this is the feedback we receive. Now, to your point, many jurisdictions, and that's fortunate, have started to work on those. And before that, there have been a number of private standard-set organizations. And there is an absolute need to align in order to simplify the cost of reporting for companies and the comparability for investors and bankers' insurance companies, et cetera. It's not just the cost of compliance, though, Brian, isn't it? I mean, just to be able to manage it, you would understand because you're operating across different jurisdictions and geographies. What is the message to policymakers, to global leaders at this point in time, to take into context what we just heard from Emmanuel and Laura? Well, so one of the efforts of the IBC metrics was convergence. A parallel path was to get the recognition, not the formal setters. There's actually a modest amount of formal setting going. It's emerging. Because when we started this idea that Emmanuel's leading now did not exist, it was the informal setters. And everybody could have an opinion and everybody could do it. And what you're trying to do is get convergence among all that because then the work goes down from working the reporting side and the standardization, all the arguments about safe harbors and legal liability and all that stuff. And the work goes into actually doing the work. And so that was the important thing. So yes, it's hard to comply with all the different things and to have variances between different, Alan's company, my company operate all over the world. And so we're very much into materiality, straightforward. Ones that go across industry, and as I was talking about, you can have specific industry ones underneath it. One that cover all the aspects, not just the environmental aspect, which is the tax paying and all the stuff that are covered by the metrics, which was not uncontroversial, frankly, in the dialogue with the companies. But we use the big four accounting firms who consolidate, let's say, here's the metrics and they did a wonderful job. And so that consolidation, that simplification, that allows everybody to have a common playing field, a common standard. And then capital flow to companies that are doing profits and purpose. It's a false choice to say it's or, it's and. And that's, you have to agree or else, Alan I won't be in our jobs very quickly if we can't deliver profits and purpose, right? And so you have to have that. And then the second thing you have to have people saying, I will reward that activity. And that's where the simplification and standardization and frankly, materiality is important. Alan, to Brian's point about being able to converge passion, profit, purpose. And I know Unilever is a big believer in that as well. But what are the big challenges that you see? We talked about global supply chain disruptions, building resilient supply chains at this point in time that also keep in mind the ESG goals that we want to attain. What are the big challenges that you see around you at this point in time? So, Shreena, the question of what are the big challenges that we see at Unilever is a 90 minute answer in the current circumstances. I'll try and keep it to the subject of non-financial metrics and ESG metrics. Well, Unilever has been fairly advanced on this idea of reporting non-financial performance, planetary footprint, social footprint for 20 years now. So we want to be at the leading edge of this. But I think we're at a point of great danger right now. We are in danger of letting perfect get in the way of good, of letting complex get in the way of simple, and of letting local get in the way of global. Because the work that Brian led brilliantly in the IBC has pulled together 160 companies from multiple sectors around a relatively simple and measurable and reportable set of standards. The professional work that Emanuel is leading is exactly how you take the IBC work and take it to a professional standard setting. But we are in danger of different jurisdictions setting extremely onerous standards that are different from each other. And that would be a setback, not a step forward, for ESG metrics. And I think that point has been well made here on the panel. But Brian, you talked about capital. And let's address that issue, because you said that it is going to be private capital that will provide the solutions to many of these issues and many of these challenges that we've placed globally. What we are seeing, and I come from India, and what we are seeing at this point in time, is a lot of ESG-linked funds moving money into renewable, energy-moving money into clean technology, clean technology, agri-based businesses, and so on and so forth. Where do you see the flow of capital in the context of the ESG goals today? And what kind of money are we now talking about as we move forward? Well, so we have $4 trillion round numbers in the Merrill Lynch and a private bank platform, which investors are asking us down to the individual count holder and invest consistent with the research that we publish for our research team that companies who don't perform well on these types of metric systems, if you avoid those companies, you avoid the bankruptcies, you avoid the losers. So that's going on. But honestly, what we're trying to do by aligning the companies against it is what you'd rather have, the $25 billion of funds that have been developed or $30 billion in ESG products, and there's a lot of that going on. Would you rather have the annuity stream that's our $60 billion operating base every day put to work or the $3 trillion balance sheet we have put to work that way or Allen's operating base? And if you take all the operating expenses of all the companies in the world and you think about dedicating that to move constantly in a way, so our purchase of power is $100 million a year, that's not gonna change the course of history, but we can do a solar installation as we've done with Duke in North Carolina to get more clean power so we can keep meeting that goal of our direct power usage, but you take a whole bunch of companies, that creates an investable revenue stream. That's the recurring nature of capitalism, which is a profit motive means the money isn't given away and then it has returns that can perpetuate from an investor side, 200,000 people, a $3 trillion balance sheet, 60 billion expenses. You start aiming that gun and you take that across all these companies, it is huge as opposed to government trying to fund it out of their pockets. So that's the line in the capitalism. So the investors are also important because they'll then say the companies are profit-saving purpose and delivering on the metrics will get more capital and the ones that won't will get less, that'll keep pushing people in a direction, but it's actually the operating companies will make the change happen. The net zero commitments by the operating companies around COP26 are unbelievable if you start to think them through. The activity that they force downstream is just unbelievable. And by the way, companies like Allen's stuff have been doing this for years, but think about the volume of companies that are committed now. Yeah, absolutely. You're right in pointing that out. Emmanuel, what I want to address with you and I was talking to you yesterday, who said that we need to change the way that we look at return on capital employed and we need to look at it as return on environment and climate. Are you starting to see this kind of a paradigm change or paradigm shift across corporations more so not just the large ones, but even the mid-sized ones as well? Well, I think what we clearly see is that there is no CEO frankly today that is not wondering about the mid to long-term resilience of her or his business in terms of both environmental and social, I would say. Again, what's really missing in the ability to execute is a language that allows that discussion to happen at the board level with the shareholders and to connect with what matters because for the time being, accounting accounts, but doesn't count what counts as well. And we absolutely need to have that on top. So whether you call it a return on whatever, but the question is really to create those metrics. And as Alan said, in a manner that is not onerous because if we want it to be used broadly, we want it to be simple, as simple as possible, but to be very clear, it's not going to happen in one day. You know, we're talking about at the end of the day, a different sort of accounting at the end of the day, long journey. And that language needs to be developed. It needs to be learned by many people. We are lacking talents. Companies are lacking talents today. Even standard setting is an activity where we need to continue to learn and educate. So as much as we are building this grammar for this language, we need to realize that capacity building has got to be there. SMEs, emerging markets, there needs to be proportionality. And I think, as Brian said, materiality is absolutely fundamental. We are actually in the sustainability one of the IFRS proposal. We're saying if it's not material, don't report it. If you think climate is not material, don't even report climate. That's as far as what we go. So you need to be super pragmatic if you want to embark everyone here. Laura, just to take Emmanuel's point forward, as we develop this new vocabulary, this new grammar, this new narrative, where do you find the most disconnect? Where are the biggest gaps that you see today? I think certainly on our market, on the public market, a lot of the complaints that we heard are from the SMEs. Exactly like Emmanuel said. Because we can talk about all these global standards in different industries and so on. Disclosure to some of the SMEs are costly. They don't see the benefit. And so for us as a market regulator, as a market operator, we need to educate that sector of the society, of the community. Really, on the HEX, we run an ESG academy just to cater to the need of the SMEs to tell them how in each of their ways, in small ways, not with lofty goals, to meet the ESG requirement. There are small things that they can do and to understand the importance and to meet the investor demand and the society's demand. There is more and more demand, not only just in the big corporates but from the community as a whole. And with the, I think with the pandemic, these become very, very much in the forefront. People now become to realize that ESG is not just something you talk about. There are some real impact on being prepared, being ready to tackle the next pandemic or whatever crisis that come along. So it's from that angle that I think the exchange can play a role. And we continue to- Well, just to follow that SME we are the largest middle market bank in the U.S. and one of the largest small business lender in the U.S. So one of the programs we have going is to educate those lending officers to talk to their clients because when, if you have the net zero commitment coming from the supply, a company sells to consumers or sells to businesses. If they sell to businesses, the net zero is coming at them. They sell to consumers. The product that they sell will have it. So what we're trying to do is educate those customers. The idea is we're gonna stick with you but you have to start to think about this because at some point, companies like ours are making purchase decisions about the net zero commitments of our supply chain. That's the wonder that people, it's hard for people to put their mind around when you start to say all these commitment-spiced companies as effectuated through their supply chains changes dramatically the way it would pick your metric, pick what's environmental is easiest to people visualize. It moves a lot. But we gotta get the rest of the world ready to go because the maker of a part of a car will be under a certain demand cycle. The maker of the tubes that go into the packaging for the products that go out and Alan's company is under demand. And so we're just saying that learn about this. Don't think this is other people's problems. It's gonna become your problem. If you're a distributor, it's gonna be your problem. If it's a, if you're a grocery, everybody has to think about this and that then creates activity. Again, bringing the entirety of the expense base of all operating companies in the world, the entirety of the market capitalization. Certainly the number of six, nine billion, whatever it is a year. Yeah, that's not so big. It isn't, but I think you make a valid point there, Laura. And I think what I'm hearing from each one of you, it's especially as far as the mid-sized corporations are concerned that the issue of proportionality of action and the impact that it has, it's not just about the compliance button or the cost of compliance. And it's not just about the lack of ability or capability or capacity building within the organization. How are you, for instance, Alan, helping your supply chain understand not just the importance, but also perhaps handhold them to be able to achieve and walk the same path that you're working on? So think about, I love the argument that Brian's making that if we really want to have impact, it has to go from government and regulators into the capitalist system and big companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, but actually the ultimate democratization, the ultimate way of moving markets is when the consumer is voting with her wallet. And so two things that we think are important. First of all, we've pledged that we will only do business with suppliers who are, for example, paying their people properly a fair living wage. We will only do business with suppliers who have made net zero commitments so we can take our impact into the entire universe of people who work with our company. But then the final step will be, think about it, 20 years ago, none of us knew what a kilo calorie was. But now you look at a pack and you see very clearly, oh, you look at the kilo calories and you know that 50 is not too many, you don't have to worry about it too much. 500 kilo calories on a product, you'll think twice about it. We need to do the same for carbon. We need to let consumers make the choice about the carbon impact of their decisions. And that requires standardization so that we're all able to label, for example, the carbon footprint of different products that we buy and let the market decide and the market will move towards low carbon alternatives. I think that's the final flush through the system is when the end users making the decision and changing the system. Yeah, right. So just to follow through with a different segment of consumer, the group of companies in the sustainable markets initiative which were involved with Prince Charles and stuff, on the fashion industry has developed a QR code he could hit that goes provenance from a standpoint of where the cotton came from. Was it done the right way? It also goes on the repair side, which is interesting, goes provenance of this was 2022 done in this month with this fabric. So if that needs to be repaired, it saves them months of trying to figure out how to do it. So that changes the wearability for long term. And then on top of that is provenance for the asset, which is the higher in luxury it tells now this is a proven asset. So you start to think of all from the technology allows everything, the consumer to see everything from supply chain through how they can match with the wool and the sweater 20 years later. And you need standards to do that with integrity. And it's just amazing to see that consumerism take hold of the demand. I wanna know the product was produced in a way to Alan's point and that people forget that engine's the other side of it. So it's businesses making that zero commitments and the consumers driving us at the same time and that standardization transparency, that's where the government can help move this faster. But Emanuel, you know, to point both points at Brian as well as Alan just made that the consumers should drive these decisions. The consumer will vote with the wallet. But to ensure that there is accountability, there needs to be adequate transparency as well. I mean place of origin and things like that have now sort of been part of how we operate business. But you know, how do you know what's going on as far as your supply chain is concerned? You can put, how many things do you put on a pack? How many things do you put on a label to ensure that that kind of transparency is available to the consumer? Well, yes, I mean, it could be a one hour discussion. So I'm probably more, but I think this is a couple of things. One, the granularity of transparency is super important. We can't stay at the taxonomy levels of any jurisdiction because they are linked to a certain political consensus and they might be changing tomorrow. So if you look at the long-term, you need to go deeper than the taxonomies to indeed look at the energy mix, for instance, of any company in any country to avoid that it's blue one day, green, brown another day. The same happens for whatever is going to be about calories or whatever is going to be about local, not local, et cetera, et cetera, so facts. Second, we are not going to say what's good or what's bad. We are just providing the information for people to make decisions and people are all around this room, including consumers, obviously, but many more, obviously. Where there is, I think, an additional, absolutely groundbreaking work and task in front of us is about this piece about education and support that Unilever and others are providing for their farmers and for their supply chains and for et cetera. And what Brian was saying about his customers, but I think it cannot be only business. Of course it's got to be businesses with their scope three in a way or value chains, supply chains, ecosystems. But there is something to be done by multilateral. When you think about building capacity in emerging market for small and medium-sized enterprise, informal economy, this is about the next generation of development and the next generation of economics here. So I think that capacity building should be looked at on all of these topics at a multilateral level. And I would take part of that responsibility. We consider, we're considering at ISSP that if our mission is to create a truly global baseline, not a baseline for North America, EU and Japan or whatever, but a truly global baseline, it's got to be very ambitious, but with, as I said, the capability building and the pathway for those companies, those SMEs and countries that may not be there yet to get there. And that will require, on top of education and others, probably the development of digital solutions, tools that could be implemented easily by those entities that cannot report and have the 100 people that it would take at a multinational company to do that. And I have to say this is a completely new aspect of that, but that is a very essential aspect if you want all those value chains to be actually inclusive and not exclusive of the good and the bad people in a way. Well, yes, I think technology can be leveraged and deployed and that's an important point that you make, but Emmanuel, a follow up question since you talked about the need for a multilateral framework to address the issue that you just spoke of. We're living in a world where multilateralism is under threat at this point in time. So, you know, how confident do you feel about being able to move down this path? Well, of course it's a challenge, but, and that's back to your first question, I think, Sharon, but, you know, we just, just to give you an example, a week ago, literally Monday last week, we convinced the first ever working group of jurisdictions on sustainability standard, alignment and global lines. And there was China, Japan, UK, US and EU for a long conversation and that's just the start. And I can tell you all these jurisdictions and there are many more, are actively currently working on these topics and they understand that for some of these markets, access to global capital markets is going to be essential. So it's essential for their companies to comply with what, you know, as banks, like Bank of America and others, investors, private equity companies are using now ESG metrics. The largest private equity companies are using those metrics today, which are an alphabet we know for all their due diligence on their deals and they know that if they want to exit in IPO, if, you know, three years from now they don't use it, there will not be that. So the cost of capital is going to be raised. I think many, many more people understand that moving capital allocation is the name of the game. If we want to indeed go for a transition that's going to be resilient for business in a way and therefore for our economies because that's no difference. And for that, jurisdictions are ready to step up and to try as much as possible to align and we are serving as a platform for that. You know, to the private equity and the capital point of view, Brian, I wanted you to comment on what you heard from Emmanuel, but also take that forward. You know, 2021 has been a record year in terms of private equity deals, but do you see as we move ahead that this is going to be front and center in making those decisions on where the money goes, who the money goes to, how much the money goes? So, yeah, there are two different notions here. One are the specialized funds that have been developed to do things, but the reality that Emmanuel's talking about is the same thing that we're talking about with regular operating companies and asset managers is you're bringing across a whole fund. In other words, if you're a lot of the private equity enterprise are public companies themselves, so they are in the same disclosure. As you watch them and we work with a group at the SMI led by James Brockdale, you can see them sort of seeing that, wait, I'm a public operator, so I've got the birds, but I get it at my portfolio companies just like us with our lending clients. We got to get them up to speak because we can't get there unless they get there and if I'm going to exit. So, bringing these standardizations away from just the US context SEC disclosure to actually the sort of the professionalism, as Alan said, then nobody could hide from this. There can't be the basic notion that you can divest a bad part of your company to the private equity and they can take it outside the system. All that starts to go away and those companies are committed to the same metrics across their entire portfolio. And that's the interesting difference going on. So there's record numbers of deals done and out of web and flow and that'll do. But the reality is watching these private equity companies with the same principles saying, wait a second, I've got all my portfolio companies there and it can't just be the specialized fund. The specialized fund may be more catalytic in terms of technology or transformation and things like that, but the real basic question is all their money has to be invested against us or else they're not going to get support from their investors, which are the pension funds and others and they're going to give them the money to invest in individuals. So it's a business system of having everybody say, this is a set of metrics we can agree with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That go across the entire economy, that's the difference. Sure, the checks and balances run through, but Alan, you know, to the technology point that Emmanuel brought up and I want to understand that from your perspective on what you've been able to do within Unilever to leverage the power of technology to be able to achieve some of these goals. So we have one of our most senior financial leaders just below executive board level dedicated only to sustainability reporting. And she is a very large team and we are struggling. We're struggling with the most basic ability to measure some of these difficult to measure areas. And with you... So if Unilever is struggling, imagine the rest. And with humility, I think we've been at this for a while. So the exhortations from Emmanuel that we need an on-ramp that's easy for SMEs to get their feet wet in this space. The exhortation from Laura that her exchange needs comparable information. I just want to underscore this point about, please, can we keep it simple initially? Let's not perfect getting the way of good. And let's beware multiple standards and multiple jurisdictions. Or if jurisdictions insist on a setting their own standards, then at least have some reciprocity so that we recognize good work from other parts of the world. So, yes, that's a confession. We're struggling and I think we're not bad at this. And that is quite a statement to be heard here in this room from Unilever saying that they're struggling to be able to just get this done. But take technology across the thing. So what I talked about in the fashion is that enables a consumer to swipe to see all that information, right? Take technology in the sense that it's gonna, in a portfolio, if you think over the last several decades to the $5,000 account in our investment group, if there are 10 consumer product companies in there and Unilever is a good company and X is not a good company, they could say remove that to that level of account size. So you democratize through technology the ability to have individuals have an impact on where capital goes, which that, so this technology just changed everything. So it's hard, it is difficult, and we agree and it takes talent and this is why we gotta make it not burdensome that Emmanuel Allen said. But we have to also be aware that technology is an able consumer choice, broad investor choice, and it's gonna just skip all the people between them and the decision. So how you fly, how you go, how tall should you go to, how you make a consumer product decision, but also I can take a portfolio and actually drop people out, which you just said you can't do that, you can now do that very granularly. And so it's kind of an interesting thing that you see in investor patterns. It's good, it's not the specialized funds. It's people saying give me a portfolio without these energy companies, but keep these in. Give me a portfolio and we can do that. That's where technology is changing the game even at that level. Laura, to the point that we've heard here from Allen, Emmanuel and Brian, compliance and governance are two different things. I mean, you can tick the boxes as far as compliance is concerned, but governance is entirely different matter altogether. Are you worried that while we might see companies do well on compliance, not necessarily on governance, as well as perhaps concerns around the quality of disclosures? Well, I think actually if we took a ESG, I think G is actually the most important one to start with. I'm not saying that year or S are less, but if you don't have good governance, you don't have a strong institution. If you don't have good direction and espousing the same kind of principles, you're not going to be able to achieve your year and S policies. So I think governance is the first one. The government, your institution has to be strong, has to be forward-looking and practice what you are talking. And that include good governance, include diversity, inclusivity, all of those elements that make an institution strong. And then if with a strong institution, then you are resilient and we were talking about resilience. Resilience meaning is preparedness, readiness, and you have prepared, you're ready, then you can execute those E and S aspect of it. So I think governance is very important. It's not just about taking boxes. It's, you know, investor in the community, look at you as an institution, look at us, HKEX as an institution. What do we do? It's not just for we to issue the guidelines, to issue the rules, but we let by example. And we do, you know, we really not only just talk, but we do the walk as well. I think if each institution can do that, that is a very good place to start. Emanuel? Yeah, I'd just like to double down on what Laura said. Thank you for sharing this, Laura, because there was, there's actually one vaccine against ESG greenwashing that was in washing that was invented, I think, five years ago. And that's when TCFD was adopted and pushed by the G20 leaders. We believe so much in that, that we've taken TCFD, which is climate initially, from climate to the overall arching sustainability standard for us as a principle. And TCFD is not about metrics and targets, not about that. It's not about only risks and opportunities, not about only strategy and how you are designing mitigation, transition strategies, adaptation, et cetera. It's about the governance of it. And you are not meeting our standards if you're not responding on those core components of TCFD. Governance means how much do you have someone next to the Exco doing all of this? How much do you have incentive for your teams about this? How much do you have a board that knows something about it or doesn't? How much time does the board spends? How much risk committees have been reviewing all of this? How much at the end of the day, the connectivity between finance accounting and that part, which one day and again, will become, there will be transitions between accounting and these ESGs. So I just want to repeat, TCFD is fundamental. And they've asked for the creation of ISSB and so have been the web and the IBC, et cetera. We really see ourselves as a legacy in terms of standards setting to this because this is a huge protection against the greenwashing and having a target and nobody cares in the company, including at the board level. You know, we're talking about standards, metrics, indices. I want to address Elon Musk's tweet. And Brian, I'm going to get you to comment on that. You know, Musk tweeting that Exxon Mobile finds itself at the top of an ESG ranking and Tesla doesn't belong there. What's wrong with the world? I'm not sure there's, anybody could address that comment. But look, we as a company made a decision. We will not be dependent on anybody rating us. We're going to do what we believe is right and we're going to lay it out to the shareholders. We're going to lay it out to people. And so we have the same problem and we can't even figure out why. So you're carrying around companies we acquired 15 years ago who had a lawsuit that get you knocked out on this thing. This is part of this proliferation and lack of materiality for a dollar amount that is irrelevant because there's another company but it still knocks you down to ratings. So I can understand the frustration with that. That's why we went in the weft as simple set of metrics that everybody could agree to. By the way, one of the metrics includes the TCFD. Do you disclose it or not and why don't you? So we didn't go back and make an episode. My view is that at Bank of America, we put it in the end report. We tell you how we operate it. We say this is how we drill, they're for the shareholders. This is how we deliver for the other constituencies. And so I can understand the frustration because I have the same frustration when I look at some of those things. But the rally is the CEOs of these companies have signed on this. Emmanuel Singh have deep architectures, commitments that we admit are hard, that we admit are not perfect, that we admit are do. But there's a commitment there and we will lay that out for people and we believe us to our shareholders and to our customers and to our teammates and to communities. We don't need a lot of people between us and that. If it's straightforward enough, they ought to be able to understand whether they're doing the right thing. And so there's a, I can understand the discussion, but I've never built it to try to say, how do we get better rated for this? One of that one, to me, that's a false choice. Do the work and it will come through. I'll hold up the mic for you. Thank you. You know, there are about 15 different credible ranking systems of companies right now. And of course, we've looked at how Unilever stacks up on all of them. And on average, we do quite well, but there are a couple where we don't do very well at all. And this is exactly the point of this conversation. You shouldn't be able to pick and choose the index that you demonstrate your credentials against. And so I think Elon can relax because there's plenty of other rating systems out there where I'm sure Tesla will come out absolutely top of the back. And the real point is, we shouldn't pick and choose rating systems. There should be a common standard that we can all use as asset owners, asset managers and companies. And that's exactly the work that Emmanuel is leading and I think it's an important piece of work. We'll have to check if he tweets back to you. But ladies and gentlemen, we've got about two minutes left. If there's a question here, there's two hands up here already. We'll get a microphone to you. There's a gentleman right here and a lady right there. I'll give the lady the first opportunity and then we'll get to the gentleman. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm Camila from Global Shapers Community. We talk about metrics, standards, language. So we come with language. To talk about language, we need to talk about adaptation, resilience. And so, from your perspective, how we can address culture to the ESG equation because especially for the South Global, if we don't adapt our language for culture, maybe people we don't understand. Thank you. Thank you. Let me get Emmanuel to respond to that and then I'll get to you, sir. Emmanuel. Yeah, thank you, Camila. I mean, it's an incredible, difficult and important question because I fundamentally believe that culture is more important than anything else that we've been discussing for an hour now. What I have committed is to have an international board that's going to be fully independent and very diverse in terms of cultures, including global South. I'm deeply committed to this. I live and work in a number of emerging countries and I'm deeply convinced that indeed without our language to be addressable mentally and culturally, that will not fly. And yet that's got to be a global language. So it's a huge challenge and I can't say more than just a commitment to take that into account in the way we work. In a transparent manner, all the boards, I mean, talking culture, all the board meetings are going to be public. Anyone can attend when we meet and decide about what are going to be the standards. And there will be a number of items that we want to make sure reflect that openness and inclusiveness that I think you'll address for the right reasons. Yes, sir, go ahead. So, Emmanuel, you have the most difficult job in the world. That last time there was a innovation in that accounting was 1492 and the double entry standards were discovered. So good luck. My question to actually, may Brian, to you is, when I talk to the CEOs, my name is Subash, I'm the CEO of a company called GEP. We are supplier to both of you guys. All the CEOs are genuinely committed to the ESG. But when we go to the next level of managers, I think there is a disconnect. They still don't have proper budgets, tools and the mandate. I think that disconnect needs to be reduced. Any comments on that? I think it's the business systems that you build around it. So the measurement systems of metrics. So as we look at, say, diversity, we measure it down. We're seven levels in our company. There's 200,000 people. Everybody has it and there are quarterly reports to me. Every single level, every single movement across all the different dimensions. So there's no place to hide. Are you making progress or not? Transfer's in, transfer's out. New hires, people left. It's all out there. And then we put the roll up of that into the world. So I think it is about how you measure that. Now the trick is, how do you get into the environment for the commercial banking group? But how do they think about it? First is educate them, they educate the customers and they start to think about our portfolio, target commitments for net zero commitments and how you sort of allocate that out. So those business systems, as Alan kind of mentioned, are still developing, but it's all about just having measurement systems that are aligned. And so my scorecard to the board is, along our four pillars of responsible growth, which would have similarities to what we're talking about. And by the way, that goes all the way through the manager team scorecards and all the way down. So you just have to have the measurement systems of what I've learned over the last several years that take this in. Then CEOs have to relieve people's responsibility. So we did something on a sustainable issue in fuel. It costs twice as much. If you're the purchasing manager for our teammates traveling and or our corporate planes and putting, I'm asking you to increase your expense, but either in the near term, you just have to say, hey, you can have your budget go up. That's life. We were willing to do that. It's not the most material part of our operations that we have to worry about it. But we're willing to do that because it's the right thing to do and we can set a standard. We could do it. So with the First Movers Coalition, we committed to buying and that helps generate market. So some of this you have to give some relief to. Cost of power, $100 million we spent on power. You have to give a little relief to that group. That's where I think the rub comes in companies. As they say, I still want the lowest cost of this and yet I want you to do it. You have to say them, okay, I'm gonna give you some relief. But to Alan's point, long-term you'll save money and energy and cost and consumer acceptance. There's a value to this that may be a short long-term trade but CEOs have to set the standard. You won't let that trade off be made. Not willy-nilly. We run the company on 20% less expenses today than we did 15 years ago. Alan, very quickly, we're out of time. So very quickly, you need to build business systems. Exhortation from the top does not work. And so if you want to put sustainability at the heart of the company, you need it in your strategy. You need an expert group in the company that knows what they're doing. You need to reward people for it. So one quarter of our senior people's pay is based on progress against ESG metrics. It's only when you get all those aspects of the business system working together that you start to see change happening. Exhortation from the CEO doesn't work, I'm afraid. Well, Laura, gentlemen, thanks very much for joining us here for this conversation. I think the message from the panel is very, very clear. We need a harmonization of standards and we need to ensure that we keep it simple, we keep it real, we keep it pragmatic. And that's the hope that when we meet next that we would have moved the needle on this one. Ladies and gentlemen, many, many thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you.