 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to begin in just a moment here. I am Dan Estee Professor at Yale University teaching in both the law school and the environment school Also in the management school at Yale and we've got a wonderful panel for you today And I'm just going to allow a little bit of time to pass so that people can join the conversation Out of the waiting room. So we're going to pause just for a few seconds here and And then jump right into what I promise you is going to be a very lively and interesting conversation So again, I'm Dan Estee Professor at Yale author editor of a recent book on a topic quite related to our subject today my recent book with my co editor from Yale Todd Cork Is called values at work sustainable investing and ESG reporting and both sustainable investing and ESG reporting will be part of the discussion here today but our real focus is on climate finance and that of course is an enormously important topic at COP26 the conversation in Glasgow that we're all hoping to help contribute to Has made clear that the world is ready for a shift to a clean energy future for deep Decarbonization, but it's also clear that we are going to need a lot of capital to flow to make the investments that are required To deliver on the promise of that shift to a clean energy future and a serious response to climate change So we are going to dig in today to the issue of climate finance a Subcategory of sustainable finance, but an important indeed a critical one And I think our subtitle of making good on the rhetoric is really right at the center of the conversation in Glasgow It's clear that there are a lot of parties ready to move But it's also clear particularly in the developing world That the need for capital to make it possible is of some concern and frankly there is as we know a Commitment that was made some years ago from the developed world to mobilize a hundred billion dollars per year The assessment that's coming in is that we have fallen short not terribly far short But about eighty billion dollars will be mobilized this year to support those investments In clean energy and frankly a broader set of supporting and enabling technologies and elements like a Smart grid and all of the elements needed to make sure that a clean energy future can be actually functional and possible So with that, I'm going to turn to our four fabulous panelists I'm going to give each of them a five six maybe at the most seven minutes Opening comment to help share their perspective on these critical issues of what's required to make us Really able to deliver on the promise of sustainable finance in support of real action on climate change and deep Decarbonization so first up today is Pankaj Bhatia He's the deputy director of the world resources climate project and the climate program there Of course, we're the most important ones at WRI He's also director of the global of the greenhouse gas emissions protocol Which again a lot of you will know is one of the most important ways that we track whether we are moving towards a Clean energy future and a lot of interest in that that I hope Pankaj will get into If he doesn't in this opening comment I'll push him on things like the importance of how that protocol is guiding companies and Finance institutions as they think about where they're putting their money, but particularly The issue of scope three emissions has really emerged in a very big way But with that, let me turn things over to Pankaj to open our discussion Thank you. Thank you very much Dan and very glad to be here at this forum I think we have five to seven minutes To make our opening remarks So I would just jump into some of the key points that I would like to make If my slides could be yes, thank you very much Now, I think we will have time to cover a lot of details But initially I would like to just make sure that we understand why if we are worried about this Issue here setting robust corporate GHG targets I think that very important three objectives one How do we ensure that companies are ambitious and that comes to the Targets in terms of the value chain, you know, if suppose oil and gas sector industry Is not setting targets for scope three or as Dan said finance the sector Company is not setting targets for scope three then clearly there is a problem in terms of ambition. I Think second major problem is double counting How do you address the issue of double counting particularly when you are purchasing credits and how do you ensure that? It is a unique ownership to those claims and I think the third question is how do you address the issue of leakage Leakage that not only within the value chain, but also beyond the value chain. And so with these three objectives, we are now in the greenhouse gas protocol work. We are completing a new standard focus on removals accounting of removals if we can go to the next slide please So this is I'm just going to cover some highlight highlights. I won't go through all the details and I may come back to some of the relevant points during our discussion session. So this is going to be a new greenhouse gas protocol global standard on land sector and removals and removals. This will cover guidance on land use and then just change impacts. See you to removals and storage biogenic products across the value chain. Next slide please. This is going to be a very comprehensive standard. As you can see, it's going to have almost 21 chapters. And also to annexes. It's going to be a huge standard. And I think there are reasons very important reasons why we have to cover a lot of these details. It is currently going through an internal review process and we will be releasing a pilot testing version in the first quarter of 2022 Already a review draft has been completed and it is going through the technical working group reviews and the advisory committee review. I won't go through this all the steps, but it is important to know that there are four steps on the accounting side and then there are some additional steps on the calculation side all focus on removals. Next slide please. So those who are familiar with the greenhouse gas protocol family of standards for business. There is an original corporate standard that was released in 2004 and that is the foundation for most of the inventory work and and and programs all over the world. Then scope three standard was released in in I think 2007 or 2011. So it's almost 10 years, more than 10 years. And now we are going to release land sector and removers guidance in 2020, 2023. And once it is released, then the requirements will change requirements with respect to reporting of scope three emissions are expected to change. There will be some new requirements also to report around system impacts that are beyond the value chain and the focus there is to cover leakage issues. And there will be also an additional reporting category on removals, which will be optional, but it will have an important purpose I think for companies setting GIG targets. Next slide please. Now criteria for reporting removals. This is very important for us to understand that removals in a way is is an asset and one has to be very careful that when you take claims over asset that you actually meet some of these important requirements that there is an ongoing storage monitoring. There is a full traceability. There is a primary data to support that removal claim and and there is also steps in place to address uncertainty with respect to that removals. Next slide please. I mentioned that we are introducing a new category. People are familiar with scope one, scope two and scope three, the value chain. We will be introducing in the context of the land sector in new land tracking category which will account for systemic impacts, impacts outside the value chain. So companies perhaps are already aware that and you could make very useful helpful climate actions interventions within your value chain, but we also want to be mindful that how they might impact the climate emissions or removals outside the value chain or the indirect land use change impacts in this particular case, and we will be introducing this category this will be a required category and we will expect that companies are also tracking progress with respect to this category. Next slide please. So how do you identify and evaluate system impact of actions. As we have seen in our previous guidance, we provide and what is called consequential accounting approach which is different from inventory accounting approach, which is used for understanding the system impact of actions, particularly with respect to what would have happened otherwise if you had not pursued that action so there will be a detailed guidance on how to undertake this exercise, along with the inventory exercise, inventory exercise. Next slide please. Target setting. We will provide guidance on setting separate targets for emissions and also targets that separately for removals for targets that are focused on removals there should be also accounting for reversals. So if you recall in a previous slide I said there's multiple criteria for to prove that you continue to maintain ownership of that removal that removal continues to persist. But in case you're not able to meet those criteria, the guidance will ask that you report you report for reversals so you report emissions reversal emissions. Next slide please. Guys, I'm afraid we've got to bring you to whatever your last slide is because we've got three beautiful speakers right behind you we got to make everyone. Yes, so I won't get into not more details I think this slide can be my last slide and I will come back to other points. It is important that I mentioned about credit so they will be guidance on how to avoid double counting and what kind of criteria to follow when companies would like to bring in credits. As we know that DG protocol is the foundation for science based target setting initiative. So there will be some additional rules that target setting initiatives like SPTI would overlay on the accounting foundation that is provided by DG protocol. I will stop here. Thank you. Chris, thank you very much you've given us a lot to work with that will come back to in our in our back and forth. And I think you've really set the tone for our discussion. And I think it matches the broader conversation that's going on here in Glasgow. And that is a focus on implementation of real action. And I think that is why I'm optimistic that cop 26 will be seen as a watershed moment, where we shift from rhetoric to action, and we really dig into what's required for this deep conversation and the implementation includes of course, a major focus on finance. With that I'd like to introduce Nicole Pinko. Nicole is a senior analyst at the climate policy initiative in Washington DC, and she has been working on a number of elements related to finance, including the framework for sustainable finance initiative. And so with that, Nicole, I hand you the virtual microphone. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. So as economies move to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic extensive evidence suggests that meeting the sustainable development goals and Paris agreement objectives could bring widespread economic health and employment benefits. It can also improve the economic and financial stability and reduce inequality post COVID. The IMF recently estimated the multiplier effect for green spending, including clean energy and biodiversity conservation to be two to seven times greater than non green spending. Next slide please. Thanks. Last week, CPI released the final version of the framework for sustainable finance integrity. We usually just call it the framework it's a bit of a long name. The framework has built off the feedback we received on our consultation draft of the framework, which was released last May. This is the first guide to define necessary action across the public and private financial sectors, and provides a universal set of sustainability guardrails across the financial system. The overarching goal of the framework is to encourage ambition to deliver meaningful sustainability and net zero results by contributing to a clear pathway for more coordinated action and reinforcing the multiplier effect these actions will have on the real economy. It aims to ensure the integrity and accountability of pledges and initiatives, as well as cross sector coherence and impact on net zero and sustainability. Next slide please. After taking this work. We were guided by our advisory council of leading personnel and organizations from each segment of the financial ecosystem. This includes insurers commercial banks development banks asset managers civil society and government representatives from across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. We are now presented to facilitate coordination across public and private financial institutions developed and developing economies. It was important to have representation from a broad variety of sectors and geographies. Next slide please. Thanks. In creating the framework we set out to answer three main questions. One, how do we assess the integrity of commitments and track progress towards meeting them. Two, how to coordinate across public and private financial actors to achieve system level results. Three, how to incorporate commitments and ambition on intersecting social and environmental issues that affect our ability to reach climate change goals. From these key questions we created our necessary action metrics. These metrics were developed through a review of current literature on climate science net zero trajectories and analysis undertaken by sectoral experts. As a result, the necessary action metrics are aligned with the level of ambition necessary to meet global climate and sustainability targets. In the framework, we start with our necessary action metrics and then compare them to the observed current leading practices by coalitions and initiatives on climate action across three main categories. In our opinion, financial institutions should be one setting targets, both for net zero by 2050 and complimentary sustainable development goals. On the slide above to implementing programs and initiatives that actively contribute to the net zero pathway and three publicly disclosing their activities risks and emissions. Next slide please. Our analysis is based on understanding existing commitments and requirements from coalitions across both the public and private sectors. This is the work of these existing initiatives, creating universally applicable metrics that are aligned with the level of ambition necessary to meet global climate and sustainability targets. As you can see on the timeline, there have been a significant number of coalitions and enabling initiatives in the past several years. While we weren't able to examine every initiative, we successfully examined the relevant net zero coalitions under the G fans umbrella for the private sector, and examined a number of membership coalitions and sign on initiatives for the public sector. Next slide please. As part of the framework, we analyze current commitments for our subset of coalitions and institutions across the financial sector. Each coalition has been assessed against the necessary action metrics, and observed to be either a aligned with necessary action, be making progress towards necessary action, see partially aligned with necessary action, or D, not aligned with necessary action. And you can see the dark green on the slide represents aligned with necessary action, going all the way to gray which is not aligned with necessary action. Because we are examining a broad field, some necessary action metrics will be less relevant for certain actors than for others. Additionally, we were only able to evaluate whether the commitment has been made by the coalition, and not whether it is currently on track to be fulfilled. That said, there's an interesting spread of commitments across the metrics. With a handful of coalitions reaching the requirements we set out for a few of the necessary action metrics that you can see again in dark green. But there are also many more metrics where additional guidance from coalitions would be useful in driving ambition. You can see that again yellow and gray that you see throughout the chart above. We will look at this analysis as a tool for coalitions and initiatives to evaluate their ambition and coordinate across the financial sector. Next slide. So finally, we also see the framework as a focal point for fostering the additional collaboration needed across the financial sector, and will initiate opportunities for some of that cross coalition building in 2022. So please keep an eye out for either invitations or future information in the space. And with that, I'll turn it back to Dan, and I look forward to any questions. Thank you. So very much. It's clear we've got some themes emerging that I think again are really what's going to be the story of cop 26. And that is the need to follow the science to be analytically rigorous, and to be careful and structured in how we pursue the organization agenda, and how we encourage the flows of private capital, as well as public monies to really produce what's required in the way of investment in clean energy. So thank you Nicole you put a good bit of additional material on the table for all of us to think through. So with that I'd like to turn to Rajat Panwar, who's a professor at Oregon State University, and he is his expertise and his focus and his conversation today will be at the intersection of sustainable business and resources. So with that, Rajat, the virtual microphone is yours. You are still muted Rajat we're going to need to unmute you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you very much. It is 9am here in Oregon so good morning to to everyone from my side. I will be sharing my screen. In fact, so let's do it this way. I've titled my, my brief presentation such that it captures the core message that I intend to deliver. Yes, now. And you'll also know that the title is so is also inspired by the title of the seminal work that that Dan ST our moderator did in 2010 when he wrote this wonderful paper that came out in Harvard business review titled the sustainability imperative. So I wish to add just a little bit of a new angle to that call. So let's begin with introducing a question that has consumed academics as well as the policy experts alike for the past three decades. And the question is how to mobilize businesses for sustainability I recognize and as you will that that most of the heavy lifting in this question is done by the word mobilization, because it may of course be interpreted in a in a wide variety of ways. But in at least two promise prominent ways the mobilization has happened that are outlined here over 90% of the world's largest companies quote unquote embrace sustainability as is as is as is evident by a media range of reporting initiatives and frameworks and all that. And, and secondly also green investments have been rising. There is a quadrant room though, at the same time the environment continues to be in a state of unabated decline by any measure you you may choose to pick. In fact, we have done quite poorly, even on the carbon emissions front that has been the main focus as as as you would not more than half of the carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution have occurred in just last three decades, which one could call the golden era of corporate sustainability. So the question I raise and some of my colleagues join me in raising is why the disconnect is between these this proliferation of corporate sustainability on one hand, and an environmental degradation on the other. So why is this disconnect and how do we fix it. There could be at least two ways and and they are complementary of course not exclusive or or oppositional to each other. The first is what what I call the ramping up view and ramping up you is essentially that well let's keep doing more of what we have been doing, of course with some some marginal improvements, and that is the, the, the, I would say the, the, the, the, the central message of climate finance field is that we need more money. It is very well reflected and very well captured by by this quote that Sean kidney, the, the CEO climate bonds initiative made rather recently, the long awaited 1 trillion mile store is now a market reality soon. What, what Sean and very understandably is calling for is that we need five trillions in in in the coming rather soon. So this is the ramping up view. I take it rather rather different approach, what I call the revamping view that what we have been doing needs to be fundamentally changed, and, and we recently published this this perspective piece in Stanford social association that we call the real reorient the business case for corporate sustainability. I will read a rather dramatic way how we ended the article we say this, the massive growth of corporate sustainability programs under the business cases actually not benign. We think it has it has a cancerous characteristic to it, the longer it metastases and continues to crowd out healthier interventions, we which we spell out in the paper, the greater the risk that it will kill our prospects of pulling back from environmental disasters. In other ways, we are actually calling for revamping. We say that the current focus is the current environmental initiatives are narrow in scope. They are beguiling in nature, and they are shallow in reach. As a remedy we say that corporate responsibility needs authenticity, hence the authenticity imperative. We say that we need to be measuring impact not output something that that Pankajal you did to in in his guidance, his foreshadowing the guidance document that is coming out. Secondly, we also emphasize in the paper that we ought to be more inclusive. Currently, what we behold and I do fundamentally believe in this that that the that the cop 26 including and and broader initiatives are just assault by this Western paradigm that that we can consume our way out of the sustainable of unsustainability. And that brings to the third point that we make is that we need to to to understand the the the limits here and and pursue degrowth. The question that that is of immediate interest to me in the last few few weeks or so and which is something that that I wrote about in SDG action is how do these quote unquote inauthentic solutions emerge and sustain what we all have heard about greenwashing. And so I won't talk much about that. The second reason for for this to happen is that what I call output impact fellacy companies are doing a lot on attribution of fronts but not assessing the the consequences again something that that I'm happy. I talked about the WRI is doing something to to to address is that that it will be interested in assessing impacts. Finally, scientific manipulation something that I do see as an academic happen over and over and again. This is what I wrote in SDG action and the the the the three remedies for this that I'm suggesting is that we need more scientific veracity not not not just this superficial narrow scope science courageous researcher and I also call for for an independent panel by the United Nations that can actually verify the claims that corporations and corporate sponsored environmental initiatives make sense and how would authenticity look in action is also something that I would like to talk about just just in a minute or so I'm just yesterday I contributed this commentary on this wonderful topic that a lot of us are very excited about these days in the journal business and society where I talk about how to avoid a net zero debug and so I give there these three basic recommendation one scope three initiatives are initiative inefficient sorry insufficient and we need to develop scope three plans here by scope three I bring in the element of somehow reducing overall overall consumption. Second is do not clean wash that is that these these removal projects a lot of those are out there and they are riddled with with immediate limitations and actually adverse impacts, which I can talk about later if the chance is given. And finally that not only corporate initiatives need to cultivate market support, but corporations ought to also be pushing for regulations. And so in in in in summary then the authenticity imperative that I'm proposing at the pretext of this conference conference. Yes, I do recognize and we all do recognize that increasing climate finance is important, very important, but making good on this rhetoric is I think critical. So when everybody is talking about and and I am with the gang there that this is a decade of action. I think that we ought to emphasize that this should be the decade of authentic action, not just action we have seen enough of this movie for three decades. So I asked for paradigm change inclusive approaches I will talk about that just for one second in the conclusion, comprehensive slash consequential impact assessments again going back to what punkage was talking about, and progressive lobbying by inclusive approaches and this is something that I want to be the core of my talk today is that we have done enough of this, this maintenance backed and consumption driven sustainability and I think we ought to recognize that that there are limits to grow. With that said thank you very much for the opportunity, and I will stop sharing and I hope then I am on time. Thank you so very much. I want to add to our core concepts of the day which I think reflect the concepts of the week at COP26 authenticity. I think there is a recognized need now to move from talk to action. And it's not enough to make a promise not enough to make a pledge. The plan for follow through is critical and then measuring that follow through. And I think that is really emerging. I want to mention two more things before I turn to Martha our final speaker. And first is that we will be moving into a question and answer mode and if you've got questions you'd like me to put to the panel either to all of them or to one. So please do use the Q&A function on our zoom webinar, and I will pick those up and put them to the panel. I also want to mention that the Sustainable Development Solutions Network our host for this webinar today has produced a very thoughtful set of essays in what they call the climate action edition of the SDG SDG action. Our SD SN team drop the link into the chat. So all of you can find these essays, which launched on Friday, bringing forward a whole series of materials that really try to provide practical recommendations from a wider array of perspectives from global stakeholders in the business world in academia in politics and civil society. And I think frankly taken as a whole the collection lays out a roadmap for the action required for deep decarbonization. Of course it's put out to the world right as the cop 26 conversation is beginning. But I think the SD SN work over the past year to pull this together, really 50 different leading policymakers contributing their thinking does represent an important step forward in terms of laying down a foundation on which the global community can build as it moves forward on this enormous challenge. So with that let me turn if I could please to Martha McPherson. Martha is sustainability director at a consultancy called design portfolio. She is also a visiting policy fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Martha, the virtual microphone is yours. Thank you so much and thanks everyone for setting this up so well. And just to start out I mean this is a huge topic. I know that not all of us have the answers but I really do want to be as discursive and as challenging as possible I want to have questions asked to me that I can't answer and say, sorry. So please do throw this at us audience. It needs to be as discursive and as disruptive as possible. So I'm going to start by getting everyone excited about corporate reporting. This feels like a relatively easy audience to get excited about it's not always the case. And what we do at design portfolio is we are one of the UK's biggest corporate reporting digital and sustainability consultancies. We work with people all over the world so I'm always getting stuck into international regulation. So corporate reporting, annual reporting, quarterly reporting, investor showcases and roadshows are hyper relevant both to the SDGs and to climate finance and I'm going to be talking a bit about both. And I use the word hyper in a very meaningful way because it is all about the hype is all about the comms is all about showing off what you've done and what you're aiming to do. So I'm going to go underneath and get into from strategy, sorry, from compliance into strategy from thinking about taking the boxes into designing sustainability into your business models from the start. And so annual reporting sorry next slide please. So this is, this is, we've got a bit of a kind of issue here on online but I'll just work through it. Annual reporting lays out kind of company financials, their risks, their strategies, their assets, their burning business opportunities, once a year. This is the substance of what is material to a company, it provides the inputs for indices all over the world and most importantly, it is the starting point for investors is the first thing they visit. And so for the SDG climate action reports, I took a look at where SDG reporting currently stands, and it's in a really interesting middle ground I wanted to share some of these insights with you. So firstly, SDG's sustainable development goals companies and the business world really like this framework. It's appealing it feels holistic. It intersects with them on a global supply chain and a kind of globalized level. Bigger companies really can understand how they might be able to influence infrastructure and decent work across the world and it's a huge amount of traction actually for something that is not internationally mandated as a reporting company. So, just in the first two years that the SDGs were launched, 43% of companies in the top 250 in Europe were already connecting business models to the SDGs. And we can talk about how meaningfully this was done. And but it's, it's about in the kind of ground swell of bringing that up into your business model in the first instance. And then there's a lot of ways to go and it's really worth saying that smaller companies don't often feel the same way. It's much harder for smaller companies to really see how they can be influencing resilience. I have a lot of smaller companies as clients who really can't quite see how their connection is made with the SDGs and through to SDG 13. And then secondly, as with everything, the SDGs are competing on with with other mandatory requirements for company time for company energy. These are not mandatory. And the kind of, there are other things going on. You have energy, energy reporting, carbon emissions, diversity reporting, accident reporting. These are things that take up company time in the first instance. So I think a recommendation would be that it's really important to move SDGs closer to this mandatory space. And so that they're going to be properly audited. And but then a converse point here is that it can feel quite easy to align quite badly and quite quickly with the SDGs. There are the top level of the SDGs are to some degree quite difficult to disagree with. There's a question here around economic growth. I'm very keen to kind of discuss further under one of the SDGs. But a lot of them do feel like motherhood and apple pie companies look at them and they think, you know, we can happily align with that. And they don't go down to that second level to the deep sub indicators that are much more difficult to align with. So you're looking at things like 13.1 7.2. How can companies legitimately claim to, for example, 13.1 strength and resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. That's very difficult for companies to kind of really realize their deep and true alignment. And then the third trend I see here is that it's quite easy to cop out. So some of the SDGs are more inherently business friendly than others thinking number eight, number nine, number 11. It's very easy to think that as an existing company providing decent work, you've aligned with the SDGs you've done enough. And that is not in the spirit of pushing forward of progressing to achieve the goals. So I think there's some real work to be done to ensure that SDGs are not. And they don't move fully into being a pure compliance tick rock method mechanism, but they actually start creating, you know, decision useful questions at the heart of companies. Next slide please. The reason this is important to climate finance and to finance in general is that disclosure and reporting are at the heart of access to capital. Investors are increasingly savvy. They're not going to take greenwashing or rainbow washing anymore. Investors are increasingly posing challenges that they win. And a kind of issue here with corporate reporting is actually reporting is often kind of backward looking when it comes to thinking about, you know, setting strategy it doesn't feel like it's on the front foot but actually the reason that it's a really important to engage here is that time of the year when companies are forced to get past the auditors and get past their C suite, everything that they've done over the course of the year and everything that they've achieved. And so the kind of coalition, the coalescence around an annual report as a key document here, I think it's a really important leverage point. And the approach that we take at design portfolio is very much, yes, get compliance right that's what annual reporting is for. But the real value add an innovation out of sustainability come when it's properly baked into business models from the off. So you don't have to kind of go back and re re re reorient what you're doing in the first place. It's about designing business models for the green transition, rather than limiting the ambition of the green transition to the business models that you already have. I think as we work as well with smaller and smaller companies that are just starting up you see them, you know, doing sg's by design doing sustainability as they're becoming incorporated not later. Next slide please. And this is just a bit of a backdrop we all know this but you know the reason investors are more aware and the companies are more aware as well, is that we all are, and these are all headlines from the last year. TCFD is running straight up the flagpole, we all know about COP we all know about the European Green Deal but how does it actually impact companies and businesses need now to recognize that wider suite of stakeholders in the UK stakeholder and so reporting on how you're engaging with different types of stakeholders is increasingly tight increasingly stringent and investors are asking questions about how do you engage with your employees with people down your supply chain that you're not necessarily in direct contact with. And all of these people are reading these newspapers to. So it's really important we often talk to companies who are setting up a net zero strategy, and I will ask how do your employees feel about that and they won't quite know because they haven't realized that those stakeholders are all reading these newspapers. And there's a start that came out in the UK, the other day, and I really like this it said that 70% of the UK so this is that came out of the business. The business ministry said that 70% of men in the UK, this will be less for women, had actually heard of net zero as a concept, it already heard of it they claimed that they knew what it meant. And that's for me, I was surprised because net zero is my kind of day to day butter bread and butter, but the idea that 70% of people or men knew what that is, they are already engaging in this discussion. They are the stakeholders are already becoming aware so you ignore them at your peril because these are your employees these are your these are these are the people that bring the value to the work. And I'll just finish with a couple of examples and then a call to action. So, I've spoken about where things have not been quite right have not been gelling necessarily in reporting and how companies kind of approached the SDGs and thinking of the SDGs as a proxy for climate because it's very, very familiar. And my work on the day to day is all about ESG which is a very difficult topic that has had a lot of kind of bashing recently from rightly so. There are some really good examples, both in the public space and the private space that deserve a bit of a shout out and kind of modeling of initiatives around when I haven't worked on but really like is from the Welsh Government. So the I will have come across this I think the Commission for the well being of future generations which is completely SDG framed. It's a revolutionary approach in inside government that brings the voice of young and unborn people into that long term decision making. This is huge this is very, very different way of assessing what companies are intending to do what kind of infrastructure is intending to be built. And when I have worked on the wrap up really quickly is by the UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose with the Biscay Regional Government in northern Spain. They are working to develop the world's first local corporate tax policy that's aligned with the SDGs. This has been developed in collaboration with local business, reporting in the region with SDG research community with universities and kind of gets to the heart of supercharging company reporting, pushing companies to disclose further than they would before, and about to do so at that unique sub indicator level so really meaningful disclosures. My kind of question is how can we make these kinds of co created processes the norm for the SDGs and for climate linking them all the way through to finance. And how can we kind of just support that promise that sits under the SDGs to build out a green transition in the way that we want rather than have it kind of almost backwards built into incumbent business models. I'll stop there. Thank you very much. You've again given us some really important concepts to work with, not the least of which I think is the idea we need disruptive change. It's not going to be enough to kind of continue as business as usual or even just slightly ramped up, we need transformative change in fundamental ways. I also think that your emphasis on the need for corporate action could emerge as the story of cop 26. Governments continue to struggle. Certainly in the United States, the Biden administration is trying but has a difficult Congress to work with. I think the same story is playing out in other countries so it may well fall to the business world to step up to the challenges and and certainly to flow the capital that's required for what we have all been talking about is in terms of what's needed for deep decarbonization. I'm going to move now to some specific questions to our various panelists but I invite any of you in the audience who have issues on your mind to drop a question in the, in the Q&A function, and I will try to pull some of those up and put them to our heads as well. Pankaj, I'm going to start with you. I want to take you back to the greenhouse gas protocol, and I'm interested in how that protocol approaches the financial sector, and I know you've got some thinking about what you can do in terms of crashing this and pushing the finance world to align with you in trying to get not only accurate reporting, but the trends moving in the right direction. So Pankaj, what's your thinking about this and what can you tell us about what the protocol is going to do? Thank you, Dan, and please feel free to come in because I have so much to share that sometimes I might lose track of time, just on the financial sector, and also listening to all the great panelists here, it's really an inspiring set of panelists, congratulations to SDSN. I think that some of these topics require much longer conversations and dialogue. I think the greenhouse gas protocol has seen a long history, more than 20 years. A first standard came out in 2001, then 2004, 2007, 2011. So in the next year, we are planning to do a comprehensive refresh. Some of the standards are more than 20 years old, some more than 10 years old, and many new accounting issues that have been identified that we understand now have to be addressed. But one of the most important issue that I think we as a community, you know, I think the global community needs to come together on is to require scope 3 reporting, which was when originally published in 2004, the scope 3 reporting was optional. It was a great innovation to introduce the concepts of scope 1, 2, and 3, and at that time scope 3 was considered optional because companies were still learning how to undertake the supply chain, value chain assessment. I think now the world has moved quite far in terms of the journey, this journey and progress, and also the challenges and I think that one of the major refresh would be to require scope 3 reporting so that companies, you know, even now, companies would go back to the corporate standard and say that they are in compliance with the GIG protocol, and they don't report scope 3 emissions. I don't know if you, in some of the companies on gas sector companies, if I go to their website, I don't find their scope 3 information, I don't find their product use phase emissions. And so, I think this is going to be one major refresh and it links to then also the financial sector. In the financial sector, we, we have introduced a methodology actually we worked in partnership with partnership for carbon accounting and financials, PCAF, and PCAF methodology has been adopted by GIG protocol, it went through a GIG protocol review process. And under this, one of the major requirements is that financial institutions should be reporting the category number 15 which is investment category, they should be reporting their greenhouse gas emissions associated with six asset classes that includes listed equity and corporate bonds, business loans, unlisted equity, commercial real estate, mortgages, project finance, and also loans. So, now in practice how many of them are doing I think it has to be seen, but in summary I think to your question then that this is a very good method which has been published now. And we would like to see the financial sector adopts it they use it to set their science based target setting goals, and we will integrate it into the GIG protocol. So, with these standards during this refresh process, we will make a full integration so that scope three will be seen as a required category and particularly I think it will be identified that oil and gas sector and financial sector, and similar sectors have to report on scope three. Also, I think we will cover the system impacts, because in some sectors, companies could be making great progress in within their value chain, but then it might be at the cost of a broader impacts. So I think it is important now that we, we are in a globally connected world and we have to. I think this idea of global minimum tax, even in financial accounting, it is possible to find loopholes. And, and this they have much longer history hundreds of years, it took to perfect the rules around financial accounting GIG accounting rulemaking started in 1998 with GIG protocol. We've been 23 years, and we need to perfect that but they are loopholes and I think one of the loopholes is this global systemic impacts, and we need to consider how to how to fix that whole also. Thank you. Thanks very much Pankaj there's so much there. And I really do like to hear that there's a refresh coming because I think it'll help ensure that the protocol is seen as moving with the times. And steering people as it has for so long but now in more urgent ways including around those scope three emissions that I think we've seen the panel fully agree needs to be part of the story here. I want to actually get you to respond to Rajat's idea of authenticity, and I want to press you as to whether some of the commitments being made from the finance world are as full and complete and to use Rajat's word as authentic as we need. And I raise it particularly because the conversation, not inside the discussion at COP26 but just outside includes a number of campaigners of various environmental groups, really calling out the finance world for not stepping up and not being, frankly, authentic in their suggestions that they're taking on the need to address sustainability broadly, align with the SDGs in particular, and frankly deliver the capital for the transformation of the greenhouse gas emissions world that we're facing. So what do you say to those in the in the streets outside us in Glasgow, who are saying that these protocols and structures, the efforts that people are bringing forward in the finance world just aren't enough and in some cases just aren't real. I think that's a great question on both points and to the people in the streets. I definitely think that they're bringing a really great point to the table, which is in part that everything that we're hearing so far is really a commitment at times it's just a commitment to make a commitment. We're not early in the climate conversion but the financial sector is in part early in its path on the transition. So a lot of times what we're hearing is we intend to do this in 20 years, we intend to do this in 10 years. And it's really a question of, what are you doing now to integrate that into your processes. You know, one of our metrics is called mainstreaming. What are you doing to really bring this into your, your institution to make sure that climate sustainability is really integrated throughout every process and that is involved in every decision. And I think that that's something we still need to see. And this kind of gets to Martha's point as well about reporting what's visible from a company what's not and I'd love to hear her thoughts on this as well. But I think that when it comes to people being frustrated with the progress that financial institutions have made, the truth is that there's such a wide scope of what financial institutions are doing. You have a handful that are actually coming out with commitments requirements that are, you know, meeting what we classified as necessary action, and then you have others that are dragging their feet visibly, and really trying to slow things down talking about shareholder value, really trying to pull in this idea of, you know, oh, it's still appropriate to finance coal up until 2050 because that's an area that we see as growth or we know we see returns coming from that. So the truth is, is that by lumping with the entire financial sector together, you are getting the whole mix of some institutions that are making great progress and so many others that are just really far behind. There's also the issue just to add this one other flavor in as well, that there's such a big difference between the developing economies institutions and developed economies that is often overlooked. And what we're getting is that a lot of times, sort of developed economies, European westernized approaches are saying well we're absolutely going to do this, and then developing economies are saying, we're still on step one and now all of a sudden you're expecting to be on step seven and we can't make this, we can't bridge this gap. You're not letting us into the club you're not helping us get across this bridge that we need to get to, you know, access the capital that you're offering. So I think that that's also something that needs to be taken into account, but in no way is that intended to give an escape route to any of the, you know us or European institutions that are really dragging their feet and just focusing on short term value instead of long term value. And with that, actually, I want to jump in the call from your, your push on that to Rajat, and, and, and ask you Rajat you're raising this question about on authenticity. And I think to Nicole's point there are lots of folks in Glasgow, some who've done this before Glasgow some will do it here in Glasgow some will do it in the weeks that follow but we have not only countries, making net zero commitments. And in some cases stepping up in a way that's quite remarkable given where they were I call out in that regard, India's commitment that Prime Minister Modi announced yesterday. Summer saying well it's 2070 that's too late too far, but frankly given where India was this is a big step forward and I think so far one of the big accomplishments of this gathering. And it is the case that the, the COP process does provide an action forcing moment. And people like Prime Minister Modi don't want to show up with nothing to say, or, or look like they're foot dragging so I, I do think that's a big deal. But Roger my question for you is the other piece of this which is the hundreds indeed I think by the end of the event, thousands of companies that will be making net zero greenhouse gas emissions pledges of one kind or another. And my question to you is how to sort out what's real and authentic to use your word in the regard to those pledges from that which is just happy talk, or worse yet in some cases, we might even call it greenwashing people making claims that they don't intend to follow through on or may in fact be untrue. What's your perspective on that. Thank you very much then and yes I agree that that the commitment that India's Prime Minister Modi made the other day is is certainly a very encouraging thing for for not only us as Indians but also for for many other emerging economies to emulate so thank you for bringing that up. Your question about authenticity how do we know. To be honest, the, the presentations made by punkage Nicole and Martha have given me already some clues as to what that authenticity might look like in practice. I like what WRI has and that as punkage articulated this, this idea of what I would call kind of like an augmented framework, in which they are moving away from simply actions to impact, and simply from inventories slash attributions to two consequences. So I think that is one clear step, I think scope three or net zero reporting, I think that they should have a clear impact orientation as to what a company's action would look like on on on the on the on the system slave. I have had extensive conversations with lots of employees and and other stakeholders in my work during last five six years, and they asked this question, all the time that I'm all on board with what my company is doing, I am all in support, I just don't know how will it change the world. And I asked them the follow up question why would it not. And so the, the answer is that well, there will be an undercutter somewhere else in the world, and they will start actually doing what we will undo. So it's a net zero some game, and that we will only harm the interests of the company. So, if hundreds and thousands of those companies, then they they start to adopt the framework that that that that are being developed currently. Then I think that would be a clear sign of going towards more the authentic and delivery side of thing, rather than rather than just rather than just just happy talks, as you said. So that would be my that would be my litmus test for it that we need to put these augmented frameworks in in practice. Thank you Roger, Martha I'd like to ask you the same question. What is going to allow us to separate and you deal with this all the time and your work with companies. What's going to allow us to separate real sustainability leadership alignment with SDGs not just a net zero commitment on greenhouse gases. What's going to really separate those kind of corporate serious initiatives and efforts from what might be the inauthentic alternative. Yeah, it's a good question I think the first thing to say is that comparison is authentic. As soon as you have a direct way of comparing. You are looking at, you know, like for like across the world and I think this point about integrated frameworks has made a lot. But I think it's, I think it's true and I think I see a lot of people who are coming out this from the other side of my clients, they don't understand which frameworks they should be reporting to. And every time I knew that there's been so many fantastic new kind of developed augmented frameworks just shared today. And I know that these are bamboozling to the people that haven't aren't in this on the day today and a lot of companies will have a fantastic you know head of sustainability and a suite of people supporting them. But actually a lot of the world's assets will be looked after by the company secretary or someone who has this as currently side of desk. And it's really important to remember that when we talk about climate, we're thinking about quite a lot of resource that we've seen put behind it, but for a lot of companies and there's a question in the chat actually about SMEs and smaller companies, which make up a huge amount of different economies and informal economies as a whole not a level if you want to add that for a lot of organizations, they, you know, they are not speaking in this jargon this language every day. We have the resource that we might want to expect them to have this will change. We are seeing many more kind of chief sustainability officers. We are seeing an absolute glut in the hiring but at the same time, Nicole's made the point that we are early in the climate journey relatively, and the amount of skills and development that employees in the space have needs to really augment itself to rapidly upskill. If you want to hire someone great in sustainability, you go to Glasgow right now, you know, steal them from somewhere because that is what we really need to be doing. But your question as well is what how do we get to authenticate the heart of this I think there's two ways in one is going back to the question of materiality, and it's been a question that's been banded around for a long time. When we start talking with businesses, we say, don't just look for the shiny glittery GI sasby prizes you want to win. What is it on a day to day basis of a long list of climate related and ESG related issues that is genuinely material on a day to day to your business that you can have an impact on that you think is significant that your internal and external stakeholders think is significant and that is, is, you know, engaging policy engaging investors. What are investors going to ask questions about how can we, you know, use this process to educate them to ask those questions. So taking a materiality assessment that your investors can hold you to account on and informing them about that is hugely important. I think the companies that are doing that, especially in the kind of secondary leader space, you know, you've got the leaders of the world that have led the charge, but those secondary leaders, the ones that are doing that and asked being asked to be asking to be held to account. That's where I think we do start to see authenticity, but it's not clear cut the litmus test is not binary I don't think it's there yet. I think we do need comparison. Martha, thank you very much. I'm going to now turn to some of the questions that have started to accumulate in our q amp a platform. And for those who've got further questions please do put them into the q amp a and not into the chat in fact. I'll start with a point really Martha you've raised and I think I actually a number of panelists have raised which is the need for alignment across initiatives and frankly across institutional efforts and Aaron has put a question in concerned about the global trading problem and whether it has a misalignment perhaps with the decarbonization agenda that the cop 26 and all of us are focused on today, and we're of course trying to make sure the finance world more broadly is aligned with the decarbonization agenda and the other aspect that the WTO the World Trade Organization, or those engaged in the trade in the trading system or broadly are, frankly, not attending to the global commitments on decarbonization, and perhaps are in in fact advancing the agenda of global trade in a way that will detract from, rather than advance the efforts that all of us gathered for cop 26 or trying to focus on which is to get the world on a clean energy trajectory, and move away from the fossil fuel dependence of recent decades. Can I come back really quickly just on that one because please Martha yes I was about to say. I know I've just spoken, but I'm just writing a paper at the moment with a colleague from the UN World Food Program and we're talking about nature related risk and the, the multilateral approach to it and the WTO is a really interesting starting point, just because they've done some proprietary work on nature related risk, linking it very much within climate action, but the actual stance they adopt is very vague and I'll just read it out for you as a kind of starting point for this trade discussion. They say environmental standards can impede international trade, and even be used as an excuse for protectionism. The answer is not to weaken environmental standards but to set appropriate standards and enable exporters to meet them. I mean that's very, very light touch I would say. Thank you for starting that discussion out I by the way have launched an initiative at Yale called remaking the global trading system for a sustainable future. Because I think it's not just environmental standards that are an issue, but frankly the rules and practices of the trading system are an issue. So we need this alignment to go both ways. Roger, I think I saw you signaling some interest here so let me invite you to make a comment. Yeah, thanks Dan. And not to not to pitch an entire globalization idea here but but the one of the main reason for misalignment occurs from the the opaqueness in these global supply chains. My own work has shown that in some cases it is literally impossible to to find out who your suppliers are. And so though that that directly contradicts the idea of scope three emissions reduction and control, when you cannot even find. And in fact, not just my work but but academic literature broadly speaking is replete with findings that finding who actually manufactured and who source the product can become very tedious jobs in in forestry sector where I work quite intensively. Which is quite quite quite a, a kind of like a model sector for for a variety of reasons, historical as well as contemporary environmental standards are quite high, but even in this sector, we do see infiltration of of lot of illegally supplied word that infiltrate even such mature markets at the United States, where there are not only regulations in place but also companies are quite vigilant as well as resourceful to to combat that. So global trade has certainly served some some some inbuilt attributes in it that can that can inhibit this this alignment. Well, I want to take us from the trading system to an even bigger topic, which is capitalism broadly is there a misalignment task in all is raising the prospect that we may need to switch from capitalism to an alternative approach to economics social enterprise or microfinance. And I guess the question really is with those alternative ways of framing how commerce moves forward. Help us in getting a flow of capital. And you know I guess myself I don't think the prospect of taking down capitalism to achieve climate change is a is a good answer because it might take a long time to get there. But I do think adding on some social enterprise. I think we see a set of finance interests that have value decided they are values oriented and want to be impact investors trying to make sure they're not just earning a profit but helping to make sure that microfinance seems useful, microfinance seems useful but do any of you have a thought on on task in those question. I can start everyone else. Please jump right in the call. Excellent. So I think that there's there's multiple parts of this and one of them is a question of, you know, moving from capitalism to social enterprise or microfinance I think is about the benefits of microfinance as particularly in developing countries, and particularly in achieving the SDGs. That said I think that there's definitely a role for regulators to play, both in the US which I had the most experience in and globally in creating a system that also encourages or even requires social goals and social benefits to come through to realistic enterprises. I'm not saying that's the absolute answer but I'm saying that's absolutely something that could help in this process in terms of investors, especially ESG investors and activist investors. I've had the pleasure of working with some some truly out there and avant garde investors in the past, and it's really wonderful to see them go and hold a company's feet to the fire and even if that progress is incredibly incremental at times, it's incredibly frustrating for the investors involved. You know you would not be seeing nearly as much progress, particularly on things like oil and gas companies in the US, without having some investors who are very engaged, extremely involved, and really taking the time and effort to ensure that their votes and their money are heard within the companies. And so I think that in terms of just capitalism there's a lot of options there to look at as well. And the rest of you want to supplement that thought. Yes. Thank you Dan. I just wanted to maybe bring also our attention to one very important issue, which is our financing. So we financing particularly in developing countries, poor countries that don't have resources yet to combat the impact of climate in some of the economies even given their development goals I think like India announced net zero by 2070. Why should that be the case that 20 years more or 30 years more. And clearly I think financing is one of the issues. And I think I don't have a answer directly to this issue of switching from capitalism. But certainly I think there is a relevant point that if capitalism is only driven by profit motive, then it doesn't present a case that why should companies invest in developing countries to achieve both perhaps their business objectives but also social objectives, and to contribute, for example to achieve greeners gas reductions in those countries. Now in the in the gg protocol for your first time introducing a new reporting category, which kind of goes against the basic motivation of capitalism. So this category is if successful if this is going to be a placeholder for companies to report their financing to enable meeting of goals by others. So not by not their goals, but they're financing that contributes to reducing emissions by other players, and we would like to track that progress on a regular basis. It's very important because unless there is a redirection of finance flows to developing countries, we are likely going to continue to miss the deadlines that we always set for ourselves and, and we're not seeing the successes that we need. Thank you. Any other thoughts. Yeah, go ahead please jump right in Martha. I think this question of remaking rethinking redefining capitalism is is the one that's huge. And I've spent time working at the Institute of innovation purpose with Marianna Mazzucato so my quest my approach to this is very much in that field of pluralist economics approaches, less about remaking capitalism potentially but more about thinking the value equations that sit underneath it. What how do we get to the question of what, what is the value of the assets that we care about that we choose to invest in. So this is how can we better value the care economy how can we better value women's work how can we rebalance these questions of what's included in the in the productive economy and what's not and these are long term economic questions. How can we materialize negative externalities as values for polluters. These are huge questions and we try this is part of what we try to do and we design kind of sustainability by design into our day to day business, it's not easy because you're bringing big economics questions down and to hit the world in the present day, but it means you know how we how how is sustainability going to be valued by your company financially and non financially let's take it out of these non financial metrics where it should never ever have been. So I think about building up a business model that genuinely attributes value to sustainability over time and sustainable innovation. And then one last thing I would flag a safeguard flag sorry. These are the switches if we make them but as a safeguard in the meantime I think before you can continue to, to, you know, question value and question capitalism which which need will take place over a period of time. But is the concept of the precautionary principle so the idea that being least risk averse as a as a company as an organization in your in your day to day actions, taking a precaution approach when you don't know the outcome and that's our climate change we don't know what the outcome will be we can try and put constant metrics against all of these things, but we cannot actually quantify it to the present day or even in the future. So taking that precautionary approach, if we don't have other alternatives to different types of value and different types of capitalism in the present day is where I think companies and organizations should be spending time. So I've just dropped into the chat and our article I just had published last week, which is very much aligned with what several of you have just said and it's, it's got a kind of grandiose title the end externalities manifesto. The theory is that the business world's kind of baseline mission is shifting, and the old Milton Friedman doctrine that corporations should do whatever it takes to maximize profits return the greatest amount of money to their shareholders. The idea that the business is not illegal is, I think, giving way to a new recognition of stakeholder responsibility. And frankly, the idea that it's not acceptable for a business to profit to privatize gains at social expense, whether that it's out of a smokestack effluent out of pipeline into a nearby river, or greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere. All of that is a company in effect, succeeding at the expense of society. And I think the business world frankly has begun to accept this as a change in the foundation a change in the very mission of what corporations, which are only constructs of society in every country. And corporations are simply legal entities created under law by the society and therefore have some social obligations. So I think that's an interesting point that we maybe as a panel, and as a conversation here today agree upon. Let's now if I can to Kalkisa's question in the Q&A. And the issue is this, really, we, even if there is a commitment now to decarbonize, even if countries are saying they want to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. What about the developing world so highly dependent today on fossil fuels for power generation. And how is it that we're going to get. And this is a flow of capital question, get the money to the developing world, so that they can make those investments in new infrastructure, new electricity generation, in particular, and do so in a way that does not damage their competitiveness and does not frankly limit their capacity to meet basic social needs at the same time. And I think that's in some regards the fundamental question for this cop over the next 10 days. And if we leave Glasgow with an answer to that question, a lot will unfold in a positive way. If this remains out there in the ether, not yet pinned down, there will be many people saying, we did not get to the heart of the matter. What is your thought in response to Kagiso's question and my paraphrasing and expounding upon it. Then I can certainly speak to this briefly on this, just to remind everybody, we may have seen the South Africa announcement today. That relates to Kagiso's question very much and I think it is a good model good example, and if it becomes successful can be also applicable to other countries where a large fossil fuel dependent company as calm under huge debt 25 billion that they already have accumulated and a number of wealthy countries have come together to form this partnership, and they will be providing financial flows for this company to phase out fossil fuel, this company to be broken into these units and and turn to renewable energy as their main business. And I think the, of course, you know, I think, if this kind of financing is is viable and can be provided, I think this is necessary for many other countries as well. Otherwise, they are not going to make the transition on their own. I cannot imagine how, especially now after that, what is happening in South Africa, other countries would have similar expectation and if we don't provide them that incentive it will be only delaying those solutions. One other final point I think there is a innovation here where the emission reductions achieved by South Africa will be provided as interest on the loan that they will receive. So they won't be giving the cash back as an interest but emission reductions. I think we need to study this a little bit more, but there may be some making of an innovative model that can work in other countries also. Thank you. I just want to jump in. Yes, certainly. Thank you, Dan, and thank you, Pankaj. I think that's a very, very important point that Pankaj is making about about the lessons we can learn from from South African experiment and I think it is, it is a step in the right direction. And in my opinion, to consider here is, and integrate more closely with finances is that, and in some ways it goes back to the previous question about capitalism depending on how one defines it and what aspects of capitalism we consider here for reforms. The markets are not perfect, we know that and we also know that markets can continue to behave in these imperfect ways for infinite amount of time essentially or long times. I think it is important to to broaden the basket in the sense that when we talk about finances we should also talk about appropriate regulations at the same time. And that is the point that I'm making in this article is that we cannot leave financial markets to to to to be the guiding force here I think finance needs way more guidance than it is being given right now. Disciplining is certainly necessary. So it's not to me essentially a matter of flow of finance but it is also a matter of how we manage that finance and and and internal policies that different, different countries may have to adopt. I also think that we cannot give a generalizable answer to to this at a global level, because the situation in for example, India is dramatically different than the situation is in Ghana or any other country that would need development or climate finance and one last point then is that I also think that climate finance needs to do tail even more closely with with with the development finance and and we are not seeing this this confluence as closely as as I think it would be important to see because it is possible and we have seen some of it in in my home country India is that climate finance creates its own courtry and then it only leads to exclusion of a large number of companies as well as a large number of communities. So that that that aspect of equity and and fairness and and cleanliness in financial system is critically important. So I want to take us now if I can to Olga's question in the Q&A, and to paraphrase again a little bit. She's highlighting both the fact that a Dutch pension fund announced they're going to sell their fossil fuel investments. And that brings us to the whole idea of divestment, which a number of investors are thinking about, frankly a number of pension funds and for that matter university endowments are being pushed to, to take out of their portfolios, the companies that are really building the world toward a sustainable future. But Olga's also pointing out that there were some other pension funds Nordic country pension funds that announced they would invest today, they announced they would be putting more of their money into green investments again trying to promote the sustainable future. So I want to invite particularly I think Martha and Nicole to tell us what's your perspective on this divest invest and some people say there's a third alternative, which would be to engage with companies and try to steer them towards a more sustainable future but Nicole why don't I start with you and then I'll come to Martha. Sure. So I think that for the question of divest and guests and invest and engagement. There's certainly something to be said that if you are simply a passive investor, and you are not able to engage, then having a fossil fuel free or a sort of ESG friendly index fund or investments is probably a better way of going forward in terms of just climate action. As I said though, I think that there's really this question now of previously the idea of divesting was really, you know, sort of cutting edge I'm cutting out fossil fuel investments I'm cutting out high emitting sectors. And now we're moving towards this further option of, how do I actually take that money and put it towards climate solutions. And I think that that's where you get this idea of, you know, investing in companies in renewable energy or climate solutions even more sustainable development focus companies or even just companies with really good ESG reporting and ESG focus. That said though I just want to clarify that there are all these ESG funds out there right now and there's such a big proliferation of ESG investment that oftentimes ESG investing or ESG funds are just the best disclosure across the board so you do have ESG funds that are really just the S&P 500 in a lot of ways because those disclosures are the best within those industries. So I think that there's always this, this tension between what is actual green investments, what is sort of looks like a green investment but could actually be you know pretty much a standard run of the mill investment. And then where is it that you're consciously investing in a high emitting company or a company that you feel could take better action on climate, and really sort of trying to hold their feet to the fire as much as you as a shareholder can. So, I think that there's a lot of space between those I think the idea of moving funds towards active climate solutions is a huge part of what we're going to see in the future and is really sort of the future focus of climate investing ways that you're not just avoiding emissions but actually reducing emissions through your investment to the extent possible. I don't necessarily know how to encourage that but I think that it's absolutely worthwhile of being encouraged. All right, Martha will let you tell us how to encourage this or further any other comments you want on this question. Sure, so I think Nicole's done a really good. She's really laid out this kind of exit voice and loyalty trifecta that is that the heart of impact investors today. And I think that something I so I really love this question because it's all about pension funds and pension funds and insurance companies I think are the institutional investors that are just so inherently embedded in the future should be inherently embedded in the future well being of their asset holders. And I am going to, I'm going to, but I've got a favorite quote about pension funds and I'm going to tell it to you and then I'm going to explain it. So, there's a great book it's called banking on death or investing in life and it's all about pension fund investment, and it's quite near the opening. Robin Blackburn, who is the author says pensions maybe thought tedious, because they sacrifice the present to a remote future and spontaneity to calculation, or because they embody a vain human attempt to control the future. And I just love this because it's all about, I have my pension I need to be focusing on the future this is all about me when I hit, you know, 65 the last years of my life. I mean, the last half of my life, hopefully. But the same could be said about climate change climate change mitigation climate change adaptation is an exercise in control nature with a focus on number on degrees on risk management on calculation. And I think we need to remember that in the past, you know, pension funds and insurance companies have been at the heart of developing the productive economy they have channeled liquidity through to capital markets for years and years And I think for me the answer to your question Dan about, you know, what is it that they can do now is really go back to the heart of why they invest, go back and re understand fiduciary duty, go back and understand why it is that what are they taking on on behalf of their long term. You know, investors, which is all of us, especially in a country where it's almost mandatory to have a kind of pension fund. So I think I will add a pension fund element to Nicole's answer. But this question of fiduciary duty I think is really, really interesting and it's been re re imagined and redefined recently over the last kind of 10 years. But I think we're at a climate crux now, where we really need to start asking questions again about what does it mean to be long time investing on behalf of a huge population. I want to put one more topic on the table which again we've touched on. And really, I'm Rajat, you know, I guess punk eyes you wanted to offer. Yes, thank you. Sorry, yeah, just quickly on the point on how do you encourage. I think we need to publish some stories on on the loss that banks are going to experience and some are already experiencing right now I think this story just also came today. The bank had invested starting 2005 until now about $20 billion in South Africa in setting up new coal fire power plants, and now they're investing in phasing them out under this new partnership. So what happened to that money, and who lost that money. It was, it was a loss for public sector, but this is the kind of loss that is coming to the private sector also very soon. So I think we need to publicize the stories and it will be very important now people to see these red flags that are starting to appear in some such places like what has happened in South Africa already. That's very helpful and by the way you've helped answer. Another part of Aaron's earlier question about the need for a risk management kind of a professional structure that begins to put a price on some of these losses and gets people focused on the fact that there are climate related failures going on that we should be looking at that. So that's very, very helpful. So let me turn to what may well be our final question here. And that is one of the things that I find most impressive about the work that punkage and his colleagues have done to create the greenhouse gas emissions protocol is that it has really taken the field. It has become the dominant framework. And if you're not reporting on this framework, you're not reporting in many circumstances you're not seen as serious. I want to raise the parallel question with regard to environmental social and governance metrics. I'm very worried and have been writing and researching on the prospect that we've got such divergent views about what it means to do an ESG disclosure to people having in many cases their own view of what to report, how to report. There is no methodological consistency, even when we say we're reporting scope three people don't report the same way, all of which makes true apples to apples comparisons difficult. Frankly, it makes it's difficult to identify the leaders or to call out the laggards. We could lead some of the finance world just to throw up their hands and say this isn't a mature arena. We can't. We don't really have investment grade data. So we cannot drive portfolio decisions based on this. Now my view is the rising flood of mainstream investors who want sustainability factored in who want better alignment between their values and their portfolios are going to insist that the finance world do better. So we can step up. What's the way to get to where we are with greenhouse gas emissions reporting which is there is an established methodology. So I think, you know, again, Nicole maybe first and then Martha second. Do we need a government structure here. Who needs to get us on a common track. I think in both globally and in the US there needs to be a climate risk disclosure mandate and a framework that includes things like the calculations that need to make for scope three as you mentioned, also one of the things that I know is gaining a little bit of traction is the idea that your sustainability or climate disclosures need to be audited and verified by a third party to ensure accuracy and consistency that the numbers that you're coming up with, you know that's transparent in terms of its calculation and its measurement. I would say, absolutely, we need some sort of regulatory framework that is globally mandated, at least for publicly traded companies and ideally even for larger, you know, private companies with a phase in approach. And we need it yesterday, but certainly in the coming years 100%. Thank you Martha, a thought to add on that. I don't agree, but I think there's some real caveats here and there are geographical differences that need to be treated sensitively and need to be included. We can't all be reporting to what is thought of on either coast of the US then needs to be geographical flux governance issues in particular here in the UK, one reports culture issues under governance. Under the Financial Reporting Council, this will culture is not going to be seen the same across the world diversity inclusion and not going to be similar. You know, the outputs the outcomes are not going to be similar across the world so I agree and you do have you know, IRC SAS BGRI are coming together over time to pick three different ESG frameworks. But I just would flag some caveats and one thing I also would say is I'm coming from a really interesting place in here in the UK, in that we've got the task force on climate related financial disclosures has come into mandatory reporting for premium listed companies on the London Stock Exchange from this coming year so we'll see the first reports come out in the spring. We've done some early analysis of pre mandatory reporting. I'll put a link in the chat to our paper but finding out how difficult companies are finding it with the lack of guidance that's currently there or the amount of guidance that's currently there, but is is not in that mandatory phase has been really interesting. But the TCFD, at least is in place and when the TNFD the task force on nature related financial disclosures which obviously at play now the task force has been set up. When that comes out, it should be able to align with this where we will see but might align with this kind of four part like four pillar 11 recommendations process that TCFD has. So I think there's something about bringing together the frameworks, but also just harmonizing the structure so that companies know there are four things to report on and 11 under those or that kind of thing making back into a kind of harmony. And I would say it's not just the array of metrics, it is the methodologies underneath. We need to have both because otherwise there is a breakdown. A further thought on that or frankly with our last minute clicking away here, a closing 20 seconds from any of you on on any of the topics we've addressed today, a final word you'd like to leave the audience with. I would thank you Dan and just quickly I would say that we have to collectively make a much stronger progress in at least in the greenhouse gas protocol world. We are seriously looking into a perhaps a scope X to be named. Please don't quote me, but what should be that category for system impacts. And unless we account for them, we likely are going to see leakage, and we will overall see global ambition global emissions to keep rising. Thank you and also thank you for this opportunity beautiful panel beautiful discussion and great facilitation. Thank you very much. Other closing thoughts, by the way, Pankaj you've just answered another question of someone who wanted us to see whether we shouldn't have scope zero, which was really to focus on finance impacts I think that's a creative idea. Thank you in your closing thought for getting one more question clicked off. A last comment for many of the others of you. I want to essentially double down on what Martha was saying that yes there is need for standardization, but we need to be extremely sensitive about about the geographical differences and not only that. I think a lot of SMEs that I have, I have talked to in in in last decade or so. They are extremely worried about these standardization because as they become interested in in in corporate practices and, and supply chain requirements and all that. It's extremely difficult, even to comply with them, never mind improving upon because of the costs involved in in in those processes. So, I think yes there is important I mean there is there is there is value in standardization but as you said then, I think the concern would be more about methodology rather than the reporting and all those things that can be left at at at the entity level. Discretion. Yeah, thank you very much again. It was wonderful. I am going to bring us to a close with a thanks to a fabulous panel I hope the audience that still participating can join me in a virtual round of applause for outstanding contributions from a number of different directions. I also want to thank Dorothea Sluver of the sustainable development solutions network and the entire SDSM team that pulled together not only our program today. A fabulous panel but frankly the entire zero emissions solutions conference that is coming to you all across this whole week. It is a important contribution to the conversation for cop 26. It is picking up critical issues, and it really does represent exactly the kind of thoughtful conversation that in some regards on the outside of the official conversation helps to shape the dialogue in terms of what goes into agreements, and really does influence in a very profound way. I think the scope and direction of the agreements that people come to at the government level. Again, I would encourage all of you who have listened in to go look at the SDSM and action set of essays the climate focused a special edition that's just come out. There's a lot there to work with, and I think it is fabulous to see the kind of thinking that's going on as the world mobilizes in so many directions to deliver a clean energy future deep decarbonization, and a successful response to climate change not just in one country, but across all the nations of the world. And with that I close this out in terms of today's panel and look forward to seeing a number of you tomorrow as the SDSM conference continues. Good afternoon. Good morning to those of you on the West Coast of the United States. And for those who are in far the far Eastern time zones. Welcome to a new day. Take care and hope to continue the conversation and the days and weeks ahead. Bye bye.