Highlights
Financing the transition
Energy transition
Climate tech and data
Getting in touch with nature
A new age of accounting
New! In conversation with Feargal Sharkey
For the first time, Climate Summit hosted an in-person session on Wednesday 15 November at Chartered Accountants' Hall.
We were delighted to be joined by Feargal Sharkey, singer turned water campaigner who talked about his career and what led him to take on the UK's water companies and regulators to clean up our polluted waterways.
Programme 2023
Monday 13 November - Financing the transition
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How do we boost growth in transition finance?
This panel session will focus on what we mean by transition finance and what financial institutions and regulators need to do to ensure a stable, and rapid transition to net zero. Chair: Jessica Fries at A4S. Speakers: Pyarali Jamal, Jose Hopkins at Simplify Climate, Riona Bowhay at Aviva Investors.
- 09:00 - 10:00
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Funding for net zero
Join Tony Greenham, British Business Bank, to explore support for SMEs including funding opportunities to help you and your clients reach net zero. Chair: Sarah Reay at ICAEW. Speaker: Tony Greenham at British Business Bank.
- 11:00 - 12:00
Tuesday 14 November - Energy transition
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What's stopping renewables?
Join this session to learn more about the current state of the energy market, the blockers and opportunities for rapid decarbonisation of the power sector and how finance professions have a role to play in the energy transition. Chair: Sarah George at Edie. Speakers: Ian Brown at UK Infrastructure Bank, Hiten Sonpal at DLL Group, Dr Rene Cotting at Smartenergy Group.
- 09:00 - 10:00
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Reducing your energy demand
To decarbonise the energy sector, we must look at demand side reforms to the system. In this session we will look at how businesses can reduce their energy consumption, ways to improve energy efficiency and what financial support is out there to help you on the journey. Chair: Simon Gray at ICAEW. Speakers: Chris Taylor at Broadway Initiative, Craig Needham at Real Carbon Strategies.
- 11:00 - 12:00
Wednesday 15 November - Climate tech and data (morning)
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Future-proof your firm with carbon accounting
Trace is helping accountants to understand the emerging demands of non-financial reporting from their SME clients. Join this session to understand why carbon is a business risk, how to measure your footprint, set targets and manage your emissions. Learn how carbon accounting software can help your firm secure revenue, client retention and boost employee engagement on the road to net zero. Chair: Sarah Reay at ICAEW, Speakers: Cat Long at Trace, Talyor Fox-smith at Trace.
- 09:00 - 10:00
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Preparing a transition plan
Led by the Transition Plan Taskforce, this session will explore how to prepare a net zero transition plan that is socially just and nature-positive using the newly launched sector-neutral framework. The TPT framework encourages an ambitious approach contributing to an economy-wide net zero transition whilst supporting greater accountability through effective reporting on progress. Chair: Richard Spencer at ICAEW. Speakers: Max Rose at TPT, Ira Poensgen at TPT, Tasha Clarbour at Deloitte.
- 11:00 - 12:00
Thursday 16 November - Getting in touch with nature
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Danger in our waters
Join this inspiring and thought-provoking session led by Monty Halls. Best known for his three BBC2 series 'Great Escapes', Monty will explore the impact of climate change on coastal communities and broader water-related systems, and how you can take critical action in your organisation and community to protect and restore nature. Chair: Toby Roxburgh at ICAEW. Speaker: Monty Halls.
- 09:00 - 10:00
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Is a nature positive economy achievable?
To achieve net zero, we must protect and restore nature and recognise the importance of ecosystem services on people and the planet. Our expert panel will discuss what a nature positive economy entails, how it supports the transition to net zero and if it is possible to achieve. Chair Toby Roxburgh at ICAEW. Speakers: Michael Ofosuhene-Wise at Business for Nature, Thomas Viegas at TNFD, Rayne van den Berg.
- 11:00 - 12:00
Friday 17 November – A new age of accounting
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Transforming ideas into impact
Join this session to be inspired about the future of business. Learn how you can transform your organisation to be more sustainable and be inspired by innovations changing how we do things to have a more positive impact on people and the planet. Chair: Marion Osieyo at ICAEW. Speakers: Hannah Keartland at B CorpTM Keartland & Co.
- 09:00 - 10:00
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Disrupting the system: do we need to change accounting?
Lead by Roger Spitz, how do we change the system of doing business and by extension, accounting, to measure what we truly find valuable. Chair: Natalie Nicholles at Capitals Coalition. Speaker: Roger Spitz at Techistential.
- 12:00 - 13:00
Our speakers
Riona is a Senior Macro-stewardship Analyst at the Aviva Investors Sustainable Finance Centre for Excellence. She works with Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Steve Waygood, to drive systemic change in financial markets. Engaging with policy makers and regulators around the world, the team seeks to address market failures on sustainability issues to support the creation of a sustainable financial system. Such issues include climate change, biodiversity loss and antimicrobial resistance.
Rayne van den Berg is a Chartered Accountant and experienced Finance Executive with a passion for sustainability. She has a strong interest in corporate sustainability and believes that integrated reporting will be an important tool to improve the transparency of an organisation’s environmental, social and financial impact and to generate positive change. Rayne inspired and led a multidisciplinary team to develop Forico’s first three Natural Capital Reports. Rayne has recently been invited to participate in global thought leadership and piloting for the Taskforce for Nature Based Financial Disclosures (TNFD).
Ian is responsible for the origination and execution of the bank’s lending and investing activities. Ian is an experienced banker and investor. Before joining UKIB, he was Head of Private Markets at asset manager LGPS Central, establishing its infrastructure, private credit, private equity and real estate direct and fund of funds platform for its eight UK pension schemes. Previously, he spent 14 years at Lloyds Banking Group, where latterly he was Head of Industrials & Infrastructure and Head of Large Corporates, Europe. He had joined Lloyds to lead leveraged finance in Europe, becoming Global Head of Leveraged Finance and then Global Head of Loan Financing before moving to head coverage. His career prior to Lloyds was at UBS where he was a Managing Director in the leveraged finance and advisory business.
Dr. René Cotting is the CFO of Smartenergy Group since May 2021, a privately owned renewable energy investment company. He also serves as the CFO and Head of Investor Relations for the SIX stock-listed company, Edisun Power. Dr. Cotting has extensive management experience with the ABB Group, where he held various positions since 1995, including CFO of ABB Switzerland from 2013 to May 2017. He gained international experience in emerging markets like India, China, and Poland, and served as a CFO in the Silicon Valley and Texas (USA). Dr. Cotting holds a PhD from the University of Fribourg/Freiburg, Switzerland, in Strategic Management, Finance, and Macro-economics, and has furthered his education at renowned institutions such as IMD, Harvard Business School, Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University, MIT, and Wharton Business School.
Tasha is a Director in Deloitte’s Sustainable Finance team, with over 12 years’ experience working with banks to set strategy on climate and sustainability, develop plans to embed and implement strategies, and measure and report on progress. She has supported banks to set transition targets, covering operations and financing activities, and has advised a number of large listed Banks to develop transition plans to guide, embed and operationalise those targets. Tasha regularly contributes to the external policy and standard setting environment, through membership on key regulatory strategy groups on ESG, as well as green finance industry steering committees.
Taylor is an experienced commercial leader and a fierce advocate for the role of accountants in a cleaner future. With her legal background and experience developing standards, Taylor sees accountants as the trusted advisor who can power emissions measurement at scale. Taylor's area of expertise includes climate-related disclosure, carbon accounting software, sustainability reporting and climate risk management for SMEs.
Jessica is Executive Chairman of The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S), established by His Majesty, the then Prince of Wales in 2004. She has led A4S since 2008, working with the finance community to catalyse a shift to a sustainable economy, with a focus on practical actions and targeted interventions capable of achieving global change. While at A4S, Jessica has been responsible for establishing the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), as well as A4S's CFO Leadership Network and capital markets programme.
Sarah is an award-winning journalist specialising in energy, the environment and ESG. She is currently the deputy editor of edie.net, the UK’s longest-running business-to-business media title dedicated to environmental sustainability. Having worked for the Edie team for more than five years, she has a wealth of knowledge relating to British energy policy, corporate clean energy procurement and the state of play in the global energy transition. Sarah is a co-host of the popular Sustainability Uncovered podcast.
Tony works within the Bank’s Impact and Insights team. He is focused on delivering the Bank’s objective to support the UK's transition to a net zero economy. After starting his career at PwC, and then in equity capital markets at Barclays and Credit Suisse, Tony spent several years in the small business sector as a finance director. Since 2010, he has focused on sustainable and inclusive finance as both research director and practitioner at the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and as co-founder and executive director of South West Mutual. He is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab.
Monty is a broadcaster, speaker, naturalist, former Royal Marine, marine biologist, travel writer and leadership specialist. His experience covers over two decades of leading teams in some of the most remote environments on earth, presenting wildlife and adventure documentaries, and working with blue chip companies both in the UK and overseas.
Jose helps organisations navigate evolving Sustainability and ESG reporting regulations. He conducts diagnostic reviews to assess readiness for various standards (e.g., SDG's, CDP, GRI, TCFD, TNFD, IFRS, ISSB) and supports the development of transparent strategies and reporting roadmaps. Jose excels in training internal ESG teams, preparing TCFD/ESG reports, and conducting risk assessments. His extensive experience includes working with leading organisations like BHP's Minera Escondida, Syngenta, Infinis (UK's largest offshore windfarm company), Trainline, Virgin Group, KAZ Minerals, and more.
Pyarali has 28 years of experience across several sectors and geographies, including four years as a banker and ten years at EY in the Transaction Advisory Services group. Whilst at EY, Pyarali was Head of the Canada Corporate Finance Renewable Energy and Cleantech team, and a senior member of the national Real Estate and Public Sector teams. Since leaving EY in 2011, Pyarali has predominantly worked with large and small purpose-driven organisations on issues spanning governance and strategic planning, financing, operational improvement, expansion, business due diligence, and ESG integration.
With 20+ years of experience in innovation and finance, Hannah Keartland, FCA, has an exceptional blend of skills. She's been at the forefront of sustainability, working with charities and for-purpose businesses. She co-founded Impact Pioneers, a select community of business leaders striving to create a meaningful global impact. Hannah is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, actively contributing to their Sustainability Committee. She's also completed prestigious post-graduate courses in sustainability, leadership, and finance, including a certificate in Business Sustainability Management from the University of Cambridge.
Cat graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Experimental Psychology and believes psychology and human centred design are the keys to solving the climate crisis. Prior to launching Trace, Cat spent over a decade consulting on strategic projects spanning financial services, technology and renewable energy and now commits her time and energy to helping companies reach Net Zero using Trace’s intuitive technology.
The Net Zero Operating Partner for Investment and Asset Managers. BFY Carbon Strategies combine data and world-leading engineering expertise to help complex organisations reach Net Zero faster, at scale. Craig is passionate about energy efficiency and the journey to net zero especially with buildings which contribute to 40% of GHG emissions globally.
Natalie is a Senior Director at the Capitals Coalition, a global collaboration redefining value to transform decision making. The Capital Coalition leads an extensive global network to include the value provide by all capitals (natural, social, human and financial) in the decision making in business, finance and government. Previously, Natalie was Global Director at the Royal Society of Arts and before that she built a socio-economic impact consultancy for leading UK think tank, New Economics Foundation. Natalie is passionate about putting people and the planet at the heart of sustainable decision making to tackle our global crises, and using collaboration as the way to achieve impact.
Michael leads global business initiatives for nature and climate alignment. Formerly at World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), he championed international climate policy and specialised in assessing corporate impacts on natural and social capital. Committed to public-private collaborations, he fosters dialogue on global challenges. Michael holds an MSc in Environmental Policy from Wageningen University (NL) and a BSc in Environmental Sciences from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (GH).
Ira is the Technical Lead of the Transition Plan Taskforce Secretariat, where she works with stakeholders across the financial sector, real economy and regulators to develop a gold standard Disclosure Framework for private sector transition plans. She is also the Deputy Policy Lead the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group (OxSFG) and the Deputy Head of Policy of the UK Centre for Greening Finance & Investment (CGFI). Prior to joining Oxford and the TPT, Ira worked in the Green Economy Transition team of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. She is based in London.
Max is on secondment at TPT from Deloitte where he is a manager in the ESG assurance team. Whilst at the TPT he has co-authored guidance implementation and sector guidance documents and technical mappings from TPT to ISSB and TCFD and a technical comparison between TPT and CSRD. Max trained and qualified as an ICAEW chartered accountant in the Big 4 where he audited and consulted on a range of banking engagements. He then spent a year in accounting advisory at a FTSE 100 consumer products company. His experience at Deloitte has included ESG metric assurance engagements, reviews of TCFD reports, and setting up the firm’s work programme and procedures for a new assurance standard, the UNEP Principles for Responsible Banking.
As a result of his innovative approach, dedication, and contribution to the sector, Hiten was named winner of the Sustainability Executive of the Year in 2015 and was highly commended for the Transport Project of the Year in 2020 at the business green awards. Hiten's responsibilities as Head of Green Finance are to enhance MHA's green finance offering by providing tailored lending and advisory services to enable businesses to achieve their climate change goals and reduce costs through renewable energy initiatives.
Based in San Francisco, Roger is an international bestselling author, President of Techistential and founder of the Disruptive Futures Institute. A world-leading authority on foresight, sustainability, and transformative innovation, Roger is also chair of the DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy. His latest book "Disruption as a Springboard to Value Creation" became a bestseller in Green Business & Sustainable Economic Development. As former Head of Technology M&A with BNP Paribas, Roger advised on over 50 transactions with deal values of $25bn, and has two decades of leading investment banking and VC businesses, advising CEOs, founders, boards, and shareholders on their most strategic deals.
Chris leads the delivery of Zero Carbon Business, a leading portal for free advice for UK SMEs on energy saving and net zero. Zero Carbon Business is a shared endeavour of the UK's main business organisations, energy networks, high street banks and professional bodies, delivered by the Broadway Initiative. Chris has worked for more than 20 years across research and policy development for environmental sustainability and developing information and data technology products and tools for businesses, central and local government.
Thomas Viegas is Head of Capacity Building at the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). In this role, he leads the Taskforce’s market capacity building efforts to support voluntary adoption of the TNFD Recommendations. This includes building and maintaining delivery partnerships and alliances to support the delivery of TNFD content, training, and education. Thomas also leads the Taskforce’s engagements with governments, financial regulators, and other policymakers.
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Testimonials
An event that significantly enhances the understanding of the climate issue and its impacts on companies.
Great overview for those new to the Net Zero subject who know they want to get on and do their bit for the planet
An excellent initiative by the Institute and one to maintain annually.
An excellent array of webinars focusing on the problems at hand. I found them informative and inspiring.
Environment ESRS
- 07 Mar 2022
- 2:35 PM - 2:35 PM GMT
ICAEW Sustainability Certificate
This interactive and practical programme will equip you with the knowledge to better integrate sustainability strategies in day-to-day business, and therefore management accounting.
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