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ICAEW Climate Summit

21-25 November 2022

With growing climate concerns an ever-present consideration for companies around the world, what can – and should – finance professionals be doing to support efforts towards net zero, sustainability and green finance? This week of virtual sessions will join experts and professionals from across sectors to engage on this biggest of issues.

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Highlights

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of the climate crisis, and unsure of where to start. Our summit will dig into the key aspects of climate change and sustainability as it pertains to your business and your clients, assessing the challenges we all face and the important steps we can take today and onwards.
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The Role of the Profession 

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Resilience

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Climate Finance

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Financial Reporting and Assurance

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COP27 and beyond

Programme 2022

Monday 21 November - The Role of the Profession

Report back from COP27
ICAEW Climate Lead, Sarah Reay, in conversation with ICAEW member Dr Jeanette Vinke, Chief Operating Officer, American University of Sharjah, and part of the United Arab Emirates delegation to COP27. Hear Dr Vinke’s take on what happened at COP and what it means for the profession.
How can the profession be enablers of change
One of the core roles of a Chartered Accountant is to value risk and provide useful information in the public interest. In the face of the climate crisis, accountants alone won’t be able to tackle the problem. Join this cross-profession discussion between the accountants, actuaries and lawyers exploring the role of a professional in guiding their clients to net zero and being nature positive. Is the profession ready to be enablers of change? | Chair: Hannah Keartland, Outsourced Chief Impact Officer, Keartland & Co | Speakers: Lee Freeman, Managing Partner, Auditel, Caroline May, Sustainability Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright, Lucy Saye, Chair of the IFoA's Sustainability Board

Tuesday 22 November - Resilience

What does a resilient city look like?
How we adapt to the changing climate is core to building a resilient society. Join this session to learn how the private and public sector can work together to embed resilience in cities, with international examples. | Chair: Jessica Fries, Executive Chair, Accounting for Sustainability. | Speakers: Thomas Allen, Head of Digital, Water, RSK Singapore, Simon Brammer, Head of Cities, Ashden, Carlo Castelli, Head of Cities Solutions Europe, Jacobs, Alastair Brown, former Chief Resilience Officer for Glasgow
What are the best levers from government to change behaviours?
Join this session to look at the government’s role in changing behaviours towards climate and nature positive outcomes. How can the government support businesses on a local and national level to build resilience in the face of climate change? | Chair: Liz Barber, ex CEO Yorkshire Water | Speakers: Paddy Arber, Head of International Government Engagement, Aviva, Tom Gosling, Executive Fellow, London Business School, Ryan Jude, Programme Director, Green Taxonomy, GFI

Wednesday 23 November - Climate Finance

Driving Green Finance
Take part in an international discussion on developments in green finance including what mechanisms are in place to support the development of the market and direction of funds. Is this investor led or has government mandate been the key driver? | Chair: Reuben Wales, Head of Financial Services, ICAEW | Speakers: Keith Pogson, Global Assurance Leader for Banking & Capital Markets, EY, Meryem Brassington, Head of Environmental Sustainability Propositions and Partnerships, Lloyds Banking Group, James Alexander, CEO, UKSIF
Capacity building: filling the gaps
Join members of the Green Finance Education Charter to discuss the knowledge and skills required in green finance and what are the key gaps for finance professionals. In line with the Green Finance Strategy, where does the profession need to upskill in order to respond to climate change and nature loss? | Chair: Sarah Reay, Climate Change Executive, ICAEW | Speakers: Adam Birt, Head of Qualifications, Strategy and Development, ICAEW, Andrea Cook, Director, CPD and Event Programming, ICAEW, Simon Thompson, Chief Executive, Chartered Banker Institute, George Littlejohn, Senior Adviser, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment

Thursday 24 November - Financial Reporting and Assurance

Climate-related financial disclosures
Climate-related disclosure frameworks have rapidly developed over the past year. In this session we will explore where we currently are with ISSB, EFRAG and SEC, how they are going to align, the key differences, and success of these internationally. | Chair: Laura Woods, Technical Manager, Corporate Reporting, ICAEW | Speakers: Vijay Bains, Director, ESG Reporting, KPMG, Mike Zimonyi, Policy and External Affairs Director, IFRS Foundation,Jo Clube, Group Policy Development Director, Aviva
Climate Assurance
Developments globally, along with investor pressure, are driving increased demand for climate-related disclosures in annual reports and financial statements, fuelling developments in financial reporting standards, and more recently, assurance standards. Join this panel discussion to explore the questions that boards and audit committees should be asking on climate risks, and related assurance, to support the organisation’s climate and sustainability strategy. | Speakers: Pauline Irwin, Director, Assurance Risk and Quality, PwC , George Richards, Partner, Head of ESG Reporting and Assurance, KPMG, Steven Brown, Co-Founder, Brave Consultancy, James Self, Managing Director, ESG Assurance, Deloitte,

Friday 25 November - COP27 and beyond

Transition to Net Zero
Transition pathways – are we on track to reach net zero? Following COP27, does the ambition and action match up? Join this session to find out where we are now, and what we need to do to reach net zero. In addition, how can we move beyond net zero conversations and incorporate nature into decision making. | Chair: Richard Spencer, Director, Sustainability, ICAEW | Speakers: Karen Ellis, Chief Economist, WWF, Simon Heppner, Co-founder, Net Zero Now, Jacques Morris, Head of Policy, UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment
ICAEW Sustainability Certificate
ICAEW’s Sustainability Certificate is for all finance professionals and is the perfect start to your sustainability learning journey. This session will share key content from the course, including materials on carbon accounting (what, why and how?). The audience will also hear from Britvic, a business featured in the course, on how they have integrated sustainability into their business strategy and processes, with particular focus on the role of accountants.

Speakers

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James Alexander Chief Executive Officer, UKSIF

James joined UKSIF as Chief Executive in October 2020, with a strong vision and mandate to further enhance the organisation’s key role in promoting and expanding sustainable investment and finance in the UK. James has a background in international climate finance and infrastructure finance as well as many years’ experience in leadership roles in membership organisations.

Speaker: Tom Allen
Tom Allen Head of Digital Water, RSK’s Centre for Sustainability Excellence

Tom has 8 years of professional experience in the fields of IT, data and digitalisation, having worked in major roles ranging from system business analysis, end-to-end smart meter implementation, data governance, and analytics. He has been involved in pioneering programmes for utilities and worked on projects in the UK, India and Singapore.

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Adam Birt FCA Head of Qualifications Strategy and Development, ICAEW

Adam is the Head of Qualifications strategy and development at the ICAEW, overseeing the development of the ACA, the ICAEW Chartered Accountant qualification. This involves working closely with key stakeholders, including employers, tuition providers and students, to ensure that the ACA remains one of the most advanced learning and professional development programmes available.

Speaker: Simon Brammer
Simon Brammer Head of Cities, Ashden Climate Solutions

Simon Brammer is Head of Cities at Ashden, a climate change charity working to discover the most effective climate solutions from around the world and here in the UK. Simon and his team, work with local authorities to help them deliver their climate action plans at speed and scale. Simon has a background in social policy, public health and sustainable transport. When not at work, you will usually find him afloat.

Speaker: Steven Brown
Steven Brown Founder, Brave Consultancy

Steve has hands-on experience of both delivering and providing assurance on major capital projects and significant business change programmes. He connects detail to the bigger picture which enables him to make sense of and solve complex problems.

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Lee Freeman FCA Carbon Solutions Specialist, Auditel

Lee qualified as a chartered accountant with one of the UK’s top 10 practices and has spent a number of years in various senior finance roles with a number of publicly quoted and privately owned organisations, both in the UK and overseas. This insight has provided first-hand experience of the challenges that businesses face and has led to significant projects advising companies on how to improve their long term approach to carbon solutions and procurement. He is an associate consultant to the British Standards Institute (BSI Associate Consultant).

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Simon Heppner Founder, Net Zero Now

After an early career running restaurants and bars in London and then offshore facilities management, Simon joined Good Business as Senior Partner in 2006 to lead the climate team, subsequently developing long-term working relationships with clients such as eBay, Virgin Media, Vitality and Quilter. In 2010 Simon co-founded the Sustainable Restaurant Association to make sustainability advice available to SMEs in the hospitality sector and remains involved as a co-owner and non-executive director.

Speaker: Pauline Irwin
Pauline Irwin Assurance Risk & Quality, PwC UK

Pauline is a South African qualified chartered accountant with over 20 years experience in financial and non-financial assurance. As leader of PwC's ESG Assurance Methodology team, Pauline is at the forefront of ESG regulatory and reporting developments in the UK and globally. Following her recent secondment as project director to the IAASB's Extended External Reporting (EER) project, Pauline has led PwC’s assurance solutions on a broad range of ESG-related topics, including TCFD and green financing.

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Cara Jenkinson Cities Manager, Ashden

Cara is Cities Manager at Ashden, which has been awarding pioneers in climate change action in the UK and developing world since 2001. Cara led Ashden's UK Green Skills Award in 2021 and also runs a regional learning network for local authorities in the South West, focused on retrofit of buildings. She manages the alumni network of 90 UK-based Ashden Award winners across sustainable buildings, transport and energy, helping them to scale up their work, and to embed their approach into policy and practice.

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Hannah Keartland Keartland & Co

Hannah helps businesses scale up their social and environmental impact by working with them as their Outsourced Chief Impact Officer. Hannah has 20+ years experience at director and board level in innovation, project delivery and finance. She knows how to run a financially successful business; and how to deliver transformation & change.

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Keith Pogson Senior Partner, Financial Services, Asia Pacific, EY

Keith Pogson is the Executive Sponsor for EY’s Global Regulatory Network and leader of EY’s Global Central Bank Network. Keith is the standard Setter (chair of Committee) for the disclosure rules for ESG & CG for the Hong Kong Exchange and all companies listed thereon - looking after the EY Global relationships with the BCBS and FSB.

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Sarah Reay Climate Change Executive, ICAEW

Sarah works within the sustainability team leading on ICAEW's climate change thought leadership work, with the aim of supporting the Institute and its members to achieve SDG 13 Climate Action.

Speaker: James Self
James Self Managing Director, Deloitte LLP

James co-leads our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Assurance practice in the UK. He spends much of his time talking to boards and non-execs about the fast-developing landscape of ESG reporting including the changing regulatory, stakeholder and investor requirements. He’s also responsible for developing Deloitte’s ESG assurance propositions in areas including PRI report assurance, ESG-linked finance assurance and ESG reporting assurance.

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Richard Spencer Director, Sustainability, ICAEW

Richard joined ICAEW in 2005 to set up the sustainability practice within Reputation and Influence department. During this time Richard has led on the ICAEW’s thought leadership and engagement programme in sustainability.

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Simon Thompson Chief Executive, Chartered Banker Institute

Simon was appointed as Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute in 2007 after working for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in Central & Eastern Europe, and for the International Federation of Accountants. Under his leadership, the Institute has grown to become the largest professional body for bankers in the UK, with nearly 35,000 members and students in more than 100 countries.

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Testimonials

The ICAEW Climate Summit was a great opportunity for those working at the forefront of sustainability to exchange views with likeminded people.

Climate Summit 2021 delegate

This was probably the best ICAEW programme I have ever been lucky enough to participate in. Very concise, well-organised virtual sessions with excellent speakers exploring themes both familiar and new. I now feel not just better qualified to tackle some of these issues in my own organisations but inspired and motivated to do so.

Climate Summit 2021 delegate

Good coverage of the subject with some excellent speakers and discussion. Time well spent.

Climate Summit 2021 delegate

An excellent array of webinars focusing on the problems at hand. I found them informative and inspiring.

Climate Summit 2021 delegate

This was an excellent series of talks. Extremely thought provoking, and equally importantly, highly practical. The speakers were both passionate and knowledgeable, and left me with actions and a desire to learn more.

Climate Summit 2021 delegate

Further resources

Green cityscape sitting on top of Earth's lower hemisphere
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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Climate hub

Are you professionally ready to mitigate the risk and maximise the opportunity of climate change? Find resources, information and inspiration here.

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Climate champions

Read about our members and students acting on the climate crisis and be inspired by their valuable contributions. Are you working hard to decarbonise? Let us know; we want to celebrate your achievements.