ESG in Fixed Income, featuring Green Bonds Americas

The Convene • 117 W 46th, NY 10036

Overview Agenda Speakers Sponsors Venue Gallery

Agenda

08:00

Registration and morning coffee

08:15

BREAKFAST INTERVIEW: The view from Canada - Room: Hub 1

  • An update on the work of the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance and its potential impact on ESG in fixed income

Moderator: Michael Hurley, Staff Writer, Environmental Finance

Speaker: Tiff Macklem, Chair, Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance, Dean, University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management

08:55

Environmental Finance welcome address

Peter Cripps, Editor, Environmental Finance

09:00

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: Green Banks mainstreaming sustainable infrastructure investments and driving market growth in NYS and beyond

Speaker: Alfred Griffin, President, New York Green Bank

09:20

PANEL: Mainstreaming green, social and sustainability bonds in fixed income and ESG investing

  • How is the supply of green, social and sustainability (GSS) bonds expected to grow in 2019?
  • Is the growing popularity of social and sustainability bonds detracting from the green bonds market or is there room for all types of issuance?
  • Why have sustainability bonds witnessed such a jump in issuance in the past year?
  • What were the expected and unexpected trends for the green bond market?
  • What will boost the global supply of green bonds in 2019 and beyond?
  • How are issuers of bonds thinking and managing about ESG ratings and scores?

Moderator: Steven Nichols, Director, ESG Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Panelists: Chan Sin, Assistant Treasurer, Capital Markets and Corporate Finance, Verizon
Jack Sullivan, Corporate Finance Director and Assistant Treasurer, Duke Energy
Ed Abbo, President and Chief Technology Officer, C3.ai
James Magaldi, Senior Vice President of Finance and Capital Markets, Boston Properties
Karim Kajani, Director, Funding Execution, Bank of America

10:00

IMPACT REPORTING SESSION: Achieving consensus and standardization

  • Are investors more focused on outcome and impact indicators or outputs and processes?
  • What information do investors require? Are issuers able to deliver that?
  • The EU's proposed requirement for post-issuance impact reporting: what does it spell for issuers and investors this side of the Atlantic?
  • How are external reviewers and certifiers playing a role in the evolution of impact reporting
  • Reporting on social and sustainability bonds: How does it differ from reporting on green?
  • How can you assign a value on impact in this space? Is the data there?
  • What can be done to ensure issuers are able to make credible market claims?

Moderator: Valerie Smith, Managing Director and Global Head, Corporate Sustainability, Citi

Panelists:

Eila Kreivi, Director, Head of Capital Markets, European Investment Bank (EIB)
Isabelle Laurent, Deputy Treasurer & Head of Funding, EBRD
Howard Coon, Treasurer, Avangrid
Ashley Schulten, Managing Director, Head of Responsible Investing, Global Fixed Income, BlackRock

10:40

COFFEE

 ESG in fixed income stream GSS Bonds stream

 11:10

ESG as a process and SDGs as an outcome – the role of both in fixed income

  • Investing in line with the UN SDGs: what are the approaches and challenges involved?
  • How do the social and sustainable bond principles fit the North American context?
  • Is it harder to achieve than in emerging markets?
  • How should we be thinking about the broader aspects of social development policies and the potential role for investors to complement that?

Moderator: Alessia Falsarone, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Investing, Fixed Income, PineBridge Investments

Panelists: Soffia Alarcon Diaz, Director, Carbon Trust Mexico
Emily Kreps, Head of Investor Initiatives, CDP
Danford Peterson, Chief Investment Officer, Fundamental Infrastructure Opportunities

 11:10

ISSUER FIRESIDE DISCUSSION: Ahold Delhaize sustainability bond case study and issuance review

  • Ahold Delhaize's experience issuing a sustainability bond.
  • How the bond will help Ahold Delhaize's achieve its ambition to be a leading sustainable retailer

Moderator: Marilyn Ceci, Managing Director, Head of Green Bonds, J.P. Morgan

Speaker: Megan Hellstedt, Head of Sustainability, Ahold Delhaize

 11:40

Rating agencies and ESG data – achieving transparency and assessing risk

  • What are rating agencies' priorities for ESG and fixed income?
  • How are ESG factors being captured in credit ratings and risk assessments?
  • How should investors integrate this information?
  • What does it mean for issuers of bonds and ESG investors?

Moderator: Michael Hurley, Staff Writer, Environmental Finance

Panelists: Rodolphe Bocquet, CEO, Beyond Ratings
Beth Burks, ESG Associate Director, S&P Global Ratings
Trisha Taneja, Sustainable Finance Solutions Manager, Sustainalytics

 

 11:40

Issuing and investing in Green, Social and Sustainability bonds

  • What do potential issuers of social and sustainable bonds need to know?
  • How to assess, understand and equate for the interrelating aspects under the GSS umbrella
  • How can issuers and investors integrate GSS elements?
  • Growth prospects and pricing trends for thematic bonds
  • From the investor's perspective, how does the ESG score impact decision to invest in such bonds?

Moderator: Robert White, Executive Director, Green & Sustainable Financing, Natixis

Panelists: Ellen Duffy, Senior Vice President, Debt Issuance and Finance, New York City Housing Development Corporation
Tom Graff, Head of Fixed Income and Co-Portfolio Manager, Sustainable Bond Fund, Brown Advisory
Colleen Keenan, Senior Financial Officer, World Bank Treasury

12:10

DEBATE AND INTERACTIVE POLL: Transition bonds – getting greener faster, where it really matters

  • Why we need to move beyond green bonds financing projects for green companies
  • Do sustainable investors want to invest beyond pure green?
  • When is 'becoming greener' enough?
  • Transition bonds are the next frontier beyond green bonds: what's beyond the frontier of transition bonds?

Moderator: Hervé Duteil, Chief Sustainability Officer, BNP Paribas Americas

Panelists: Sophie Dejonckheere, Senior Advisor, Climate Finance, CICERO Center for International Climate Research
Stephen Liberatore, Managing Director/Lead Portfolio Manager, Responsible Investment Fixed Income, TIAA Investments
Sergio Molisani, Finance Director, Snam

12:10

Bondholder engagement

  • Setting clear paths to escalate engagement and measuring ESG outcomes
  • How do GSS principles enable investors to engage with issuers?
  • How can bond investors and use of proceeds stimulate discussions around the Paris agreement and the SDGs?
  • What is holding bondholders back from being more proactive in this regard?
  • How can issuers facilitate engagement?
  • Does it drive motivation to issue?

Moderator: Robert White, Executive Director, Green & Sustainable Financing, Natixis

Panelists: Max DuBuisson, Policy Director, Climate Action Reserve
Alessia Falsarone, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Investing, Fixed Income, PineBridge Investments
Michael Kashani, Global Head of ESG Portfolio Management, Fixed Income, Goldman Sachs Asset Management

12:40

LUNCH

13:40 PANEL: Emerging markets and Latin America focus – key to spurring the next wave of growth

  • What are the growth prospects for green bond issuance in emerging markets and Latin America?
  • What has been the experience of issuers and investors in these regions and what is the demand potential?
  • Threats to building momentum
    • Emerging market deleveraging
    • Political risk: what we can learn from the Mexico City airport example
    • Challenges in getting issuers to come to market
  • Are there opportunities for more local currency issuances and how will this expand the investor base?

Moderator: Divya Bendre, Vice President, Sustainable Finance, Infrastructure & Real Estate Group, HSBC
Panelists: Dante Mossi, President, Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE)
Enrique Nieto, Financial Markets Lead Specialist, Connectivity, Markets, and Finance Division, IDB
Michael Story, Senior Vice President, Emerging Markets Product Strategist, PIMCO
Domingo Valdes Diaz, Chief Financial Officer, Vinte Viviendas Integrales

13:40 SECURITIZED PRODUCTS SPOTLIGHTS: Agency CMBS, ABS and PACE – their potential for green, social and sustainability impacts

  • What projects are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac working on and how do these relate to social and sustainability bonds?
  • What does Freddie Mac hope to achieve with their Multi-family Green Agency CMBS program?
  • What is next on the ESG horizon for Fannie Mai and Freddie Mac?
  • What does Toyota's return to the market mean for similar types of bonds in the automotive sectors?
  • How are PACE transactions being thought about in innovative ways?

Moderator: Peter Cripps, Editor, Environmental Finance

13:40 Lisa Bozzelli, Director, Multifamily Capital Markets, Fannie Mae

13:50 Luba Kim-Reynolds, Multifamily Capital Markets, Freddie Mac

14:00 Adam Stam, National Manager, Secured Funding, Toyota Motor Credit Corporation

14:10 Brad Fletcher, Vice President, Illinois Finance Authority

14:20 James Vergara, Chief Investment Officer, PACEfunding

14:35

PANEL: Taxonomies and standards – ensuring they work together to encourage maximum investment and issuance

  • How are investors and issuers thinking about them; are they resolving questions or creating confusion?
  • How are different markets developing in their own standards and how do these compare?
  • In what ways are green bond standards converging on a global scale?
  • Are the proposed EU taxonomies expected to have a positive long-term market impact or do concerns remain? Are similar approaches likely to follow in North and South America?
  • How will EU regulatory developments impact North American issuers listing on European stock exchanges?

Moderator: Charlotte Peyraud, Vice President, Sustainable Banking, Crédit Agricole CIB

Panelist:

Erin Bigley, Senior Investment Strategist—Fixed Income, AllianceBernstein
Peter Johnson, Director, Environmental & Social Risk and Opportunity, Scotiabank
Berit Lindholdt-Lauridsen, Director, Secretariat to the Green & Social Bond Principles, ICMA
Olga Emelianova, Executive Director, ESG Research, MSCI

15:30

COFFEE

16:00

PANEL: Municipal and provincial bonds – using green bonds to finance sustainable, climate-smart infrastructure

  • Has muni issuance rebounded in the US? If not, what could drive future supply?
  • What can investors and issuers do to help with the growth of the green muni market?
  • What are the opportunities for munis to be issued under the social and sustainability umbrella? What are the challenges?
  • Why are states not leveraging the blue bonds space to upgrade water infrastructure?
  • What can cities and states do to align themselves with the UN SDGs?

Moderator: Eileen Solla-Diaz, Managing Director, TD Securities

Panelists:
Mohamed Balla, Deputy Commissioner, City of Atlanta
Anna Zubets-Anderson, Vice President, Senior Analyst, Corporate Finance Group, ESG, Moody's Investors
Ben Cohen, Director, Quantified Ventures
Guillaume Pichard, Director, Capital Markets, Quebec Ministry of Finance

 

16:45

PANEL: Issuer and investor huddle – achieving consensus and growth for ESG in fixed income

  • What continues to deter potential issuers from entering the market and how can this be assuaged?
  • Are issuers seeing a pricing advantage yet? Or are green bonds are becoming the curve and brown bonds are trading at a discount?
  • What are investors' data needs? How does this inform investment decisions?
  • Disclosure requirements: how institutional investors and asset managers are integrating ESG factors in their risk processes and decision-making
  • What is important to investors from a certification point of view? Are they concerned by a lack of standardization?
  • How compelling are social and sustainable bonds relative to green bonds?

Moderator: Tim Williams, Managing Director, Head of Public Power and Utilities Group, Municipal Finance, RBC Capital Markets

Panelists: Joshua Linder, Credit Analyst, Fixed Income, APG Asset Management
Jim Logush, Managing Director, Financing, Collateral & Trading, CPPIB
James McIntyre, Director of Capital Markets, New York State Homes and Community Renewal
Chris Meister, Executive Director, Illinois Finance Authority

17:30

Close of conference and networking drinks reception