ESG in Fixed Income Europe 2020 - Virtual Conference

Set up your attendee profile, listen to case studies and connect with attendees.

An information resource for the community

CASE STUDY: EIB and Amundi opening-up the European green credit market to non-traditional issuers – the GRECO Programme

Case study showing how the programme aims to widen the green credit issuer landscape to non-traditional issuers such as smaller corporates and SMEs, and develop the market for non-traditional green credit instruments, such as private debt and securitisation.

Daniel Farchy, Equity Investment Officer, EIB
Timothée Jaulin, Head of Supranational Entities Coverage, Amundi

CASE STUDIES: Showcasing how the market is expanding, how the issuer landscape is evolving, investor appetite, and growth trajectories for:

• Climate-resilient bonds
• Sustainability bonds
• Clean water and biodiversity bonds

Craig Davies, Head of Climate Resilience Investments, EBRD
David Gregg, Head of Corporate Finance, Yorkshire Water
Inês Faden da Silva, Group Treasurer, Tideway

CASE STUDY: Exploring the rise in sustainability-linked loans and predictions for future growth

• Mapping the sustainability-linked loan market and players:
• to what extent are sustainability-linked loans opening up the market to smaller issuers?
• Comparing sustainability-linked loans with sustainability-linked bonds, such as materiality in KPIs, verification and compliance requirements
• What efforts are being made to bring more transparency and standardisation to sustainability-linked loans?
• Issuer case studies and perspectives on market growth
• Predicting future trends and outlook for sustainability-linked loans: are they likely to overtake the sustainability-linked bond model?

Gemma Lawrence-Pardew, Senior Associate Director – Legal, LMA
Hannah Vanstone, Legal Associate, LMA

Other case studies to be added as an information resource for the community.

Perspectives from central banks on climate risk and sustainable finance, and update on the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)

Bertille Delaveau, Head of Sustainable Finance Division, Financial Stability Department, Banque de France

Keynote address: Aligning lending portfolios with the Paris Agreement

Cynthia Cummis, Co-Founder, Science Based Targets Initiative & Director of Private Sector Climate Mitigation, World Resources Institute

DEBATE: Is the use-of-proceeds model fit for purpose?

Given the emergence of the sustainability/KPI-linked bond, will the industry do away with the original use-of-proceeds model? Or can these 2 models co-exist?

Moderator:
Tanguy Claquin, Head of Sustainable Banking, Crédit Agricole CIB

Ben Caldecott, Director, Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme and Associate Professor, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
Eusebio Garre, Head of Funding, IDB Invest
Jakob Thomae, Managing Director, Germany, 2 Degrees Investing Initiative
Jens Hellerup, Senior Director, Head of Funding and Investor Relations, Nordic Investment Bank
Johanna Köb, Head of Responsible Investment, Zurich Insurance Company

PANEL: Climate transition finance and judging issuers' transition strategies

• Defining the materiality of a transition bond and its purpose:
• is it essentially just a light green bond? Should a transition bond even be labelled as such, or rather just focus on the transition itself?
• what are the risks of allowing "dirty" issuers to participate in the labelled bond market?
• how to strike the right balance between purity and pragmatism?
• will or can transition bonds be issued without adhering to the EU taxonomy criteria?
• Sharing the latest outcomes from ICMA's Climate Transition Finance Working Group
• Examining the transition bonds issued so far, and the transition strategies used:
• how could this pave the way for future issuances?
• What are the growth prospects for the transition bond market? What needs to happen for issuance to reach critical mass?

Moderator:
Cristina Lacaci, Head of Sustainability Bonds, EMEA, Morgan Stanley

Isabelle Laurent, Deputy Treasurer and Head of Funding, EBRD
Sergio Molisani, Finance Director, SNAM
Rhys Petheram, Manager of the Jupiter Global Ecology Diversified Fund, Jupiter Asset Management
Yo Takatsuki, Head of ESG Research & Active Ownership, AXA Investment Managers UK Limited

Issuers and investors huddle – what do we need from each other?

• What do issuers need to know?
• investor insights on selection criteria for sustainable assets
• how investment strategies are evolving, such as divestment from brown assets, and approaches to transition risk
• how other issuers are managing increased reporting burdens and responding to investors' data needs
• What do investors need to know?
• how to get greater transparency, and access to the right data
• issuer insights on how they are improving and integrating their reporting
• the issuers' ESG track record and approach to climate risk, and how ESG integration is impacting their issuance strategy
• how non-green issuers are attempting to play a meaningful role in transitioning to a low-carbon economy
• Which new products and innovations are needed by both issuers and investors?
• What market convergence is needed?

Moderator:
Philip Brown, Managing Director – Capital Markets Origination, Citi

Alexandre Vincent, Manager, Green Bond Unit, Agence France Trésor
Eila Kreivi, Director and Head of Capital Markets Department, EIB
Scott MacLellan, Director, Fixed Income Portfolio Management Group, BlackRock Financial Management
Willem Hettinga, Senior Responsible Investment Specialist, APG Asset Management

PANEL: Strategies for boosting the social and sustainability bond markets

• Issuance trends, by geography and sector:
• Social bonds
• Sustainability bonds
• Which sectors are showing the most growth potential, and why?
• Yield versus impact
• What needs to happen for these bonds to take off?

Moderator:
Stéphane Marciel, Head of Sustainable Bonds, Société Générale

Felipe Gordillo, Senior ESG Analyst, BNPP AM
Miia Palviainen, Funding Officer, MuniFin
Sami Gotrane, Head of Treasury & Financial Markets, SFIL/CAFFIL
Willem Littel, Senior Manager International Capital Markets, BNG

PRESENTATION: Social Bonds and Covid-19: The Next Phase

• What part can the Social Bond market play in the fight against pandemics such as Covid-19?
• What opportunities are there for Social Bonds through different phases of a pandemic?
• Health treatment and infection reduction
• Maintaining business continuity
• Vaccine development and delivery
• Economic recovery
• Examples of Covid-19 related Social Bonds

Christopher Wigley, Independent ESG Fixed Income Portfolio Manager

PANEL: Sustainability-linked bonds

• Enel's sustainability-linked bond:
• bond structure
• investor responses
• Industry response: findings from ICMA's Working Group on sustainability/KPI-linked bonds
• industry feedback on the benefits, risks and challenges sustainability/KPI-linked bonds
• approaches for selecting KPIs - how ambitious should they be?
• could performance-based pricing pave the way for data providers and rating agencies to achieve more correlation?
• progress towards developing market guidance and principles

Moderator:
Marilyn Ceci, Managing Director & Global Head of ESG Debt Capital Markets, J.P. Morgan

Alessia Falsarone, Head of Sustainable Investing, Senior Portfolio and Risk Strategist for Fixed Income, PineBridge Investments
Daniel Weiss, Deputy Group Treasurer, Novartis
Lili Hocke, Product Manager, Sustainalytics
Marcelo Feriozzi Bacci, CFO, Suzano

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION GROUPS:

Participate in discussion groups via group video call with up to 20 individuals. Share experiences, learn and connect with each other. Sessions are run twice for 25 minutes each.

(15.50pm GMT / 10.50am East Coast Americas and again at 16.20pm GMT / 11.20am East Coast Americas)

Discussion group topic: transition bonds - led by Morgan Stanley
Discussion group topic: use of proceeds - led by Crédit Agricole
Discussion group topic: impact reporting - led by Citi
Discussion group topic: developing strategies to boost non-Covid social and sustainability bond markets - led by Société Générale
Discussion group topic: sustainability-linked bonds - led by J.P. Morgan

Keynote address: Broadening the uptake of ESG in the fixed income markets and the role green, social and sustainability bonds play

Hiro Mizuno, METI Special Advisor Green Innovation & Finance, former Executive Management Director and CIO, GPIF (Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan)

Social bonds: Lessons learned from the Japanese and European experiences

Moderator:

Ahren Lester, Senior Reporter, Environmental Finance

Aldo Romani, Head of Sustainability Funding, EIB
Jarek Olszowka, Head of Sustainable Finance and member of Nomura's EMEA Debt Syndicate, Nomura
Jason Mortimer, Senior Portfolio Manager, Nomura Asset Management
Yoshiyuki Arima, Lead Financial Officer, Capital Markets and Investments, Treasury, The World Bank

ESG and Covid: how are institutional investors responding?

Carlo Funk, Head of ESG Investment Strategy for EMEA, State Street Global Advisors

PANEL: ESG ratings for fixed income

• Do investors use ESG ratings by third-parties when making investment decisions in fixed income instruments?
• Linking green/sustainable loans to corporate sustainability KPIs and ESG ratings
• Ratings process and methodologies – from the corporate and ratings agencies' perspective
• How can ESG rating methodologies be more transparent and standardised?

Moderator:
Ahren Lester, Senior Reporter, Environmental Finance

Christine Sobieski, Head of ESG Engagement, Ørsted
Christoph Klein, Managing Partner, ESG Portfolio Management
Mitch Reznick, Head of Research and Sustainable Fixed Income, Federated Hermes
Swami Venkataraman, Senior Vice President, Manager CFA, Environmental, Social and Governance, Moody's

PANEL: The role of ESG in sovereign debt strategies and investor-sovereign engagement

• How are sovereigns integrating ESG into their fixed income portfolios?
• What factors are impeding bigger or better ESG integration?
• The challenges of investor engagement with sovereigns – what more needs to happen?
• Can/should large investors play a more activist role with sovereigns?

Moderator:
Carmen Nuzzo, Head of Fixed Income, PRI

Claudia Gollmeier, Managing Director & Senior Investment Officer Colchester Global Investors
Lupin Rahman, Executive Vice President and Portfolio Manager, PIMCO
Peter van der Werf, Senior Engagement Specialist, Team Lead Engagement Director, Active Ownership, Robeco

PANEL: EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan – implementation update and implications for the sustainable fixed income market

• What has been, and will be, the market impact?
• Navigating the technical complexities to understand the practical implications and future hurdles to prepare for
• How can investors and issuers be engaging to ensure alignment with the taxonomy?
• Discussing the taxonomy's definition of transition - industry interpretations
• Global impact: to what extent could the taxonomy framework be adapted to and harmonised with other markets outside the EU?

Moderator:

Trisha Taneja, Head of ESG, Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank

Jochen Krimphoff, Deputy Director - Green Finance, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) & TEG Member
Luca Moroni, CFO, Hera SpA
Sevinc Acar, Investment Director, Fixed Income, PGGM

PANEL: Developments in the EU's green bond standards, and how they relate to the taxonomy

Moderator:

Agnès Gourc, Co-Head, Sustainable Finance Markets, BNP Paribas

Federico Pezzolato, Vice President – Sustainable Finance Business Manager, ISS Corporate Solutions
Joshua Kendall, ESG Analyst, Insight Investment
Karoliina Kajova, Funding Manager, Municipality Finance Plc (MuniFin)
Roberto Fernández Albendea, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Iberdrola

DISCUSSION GROUPS

Participate in discussion groups via group video call with up to 20 individuals. Share experiences, learn and connect with each other. Sessions are run twice for 25 minutes each

(14.55pm GMT / 9.55am East Coast Americas and again at 15.20pm GMT / 10.20am East Coast Americas)

Discussion group: ESG ratings and fixed income - led by Sustainalytics
Discussion group: Sovereign and corporate engagement - led by PRI
Discussion group: International harmonisation of standards – led by Moody's
Discussion group: EU taxonomy - led by Deutsche Bank
Discussion group: EU green bond standards - led by BNP Paribas
Discussion group: ESG and Covid: How are institutional investors responding? Led by State Street Global Advisors
Discussion Group: Sustainable bonds issuance roadmaps – easing and scaling up the process for issuers - led by EIB