8:50am
Chair’s welcoming remarks
9:00am
Keynote Address
9:25am
Panel: Closing the nature and biodiversity financing gap: Blended finance and innovative funding solutions to catalyse private capital investment
- What concessional capital structures have been most successful in attracting large-scale private capital investment?
- Effective solutions to de-risk investment opportunities and encourage participation by larger institutional investors (eg first loss provisions, credit guarantees etc)
- How to overcome reputational risk fears that high profile investors may have when considering nature investments? How can partnerships with high-integrity NGOs, DFIs and MDBs mitigate these?
- What instruments are being used in other markets that might be transferable?
Jennifer Pryce, President & CEO, Calvert Impact
Gerald Evelyn, Senior Client Portfolio Manager and Lead for the Taxable Fixed Income Client Portfolio Management team, Invesco
Venkat Iyer, Senior Director, Climate Resilience, The Coca-Cola Foundation
10:10am
Panel: Integrating nature and biodiversity risks and disclosures into your investment process
- What are the different approaches investors are taking - how are they using the data currently available? What solutions are available to fill the data gaps?
- How will investors use TNFD reports to benchmark companies?
- Update on the TNFD's proposal for a Nature Data Public Facility – how should this be funded and structured? What impact will it have?
- How are US investors approaching company engagement and does this differ from the approach taken in other regions?
- How does corporate engagement activity vary across different asset classes? What about approaches to sovereign engagement?
- How are investors using the Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark results to assess material nature-related financial risks and opportunities?
- How is the adoption of the SBTN's Science Based Targets for Nature progressing? What can we learn from those companies who have currently published targets and how useful are these to investors?
Krista Gnau, Market Engagement Lead (North America), TNFD
Mirtha Kastrapeli, Global Head of Natural Capital and ESG Thought Leadership, ISS STOXX
Radhika Mehrotra, Associate Director, Capital Markets, CDP
Rodolfo Jaffé, Managing Consultant, Ramboll
10:55am
Morning networking break
11:25am
Panel: Sustainable agriculture and food production systems
- What role can investors play in the agricultural transition to sustainable food production systems? Where can they have most impact?
- What are investor expectations for disclosure on company commitments to regenerative and sustainable agriculture? How can investors evaluate company progress and outcomes achieved?
- How can an equitable and just transition of food systems be encouraged and financed?
- What innovative financing structures are needed to address the funding gap facing the regenerative agricultural transition? How can different asset classes best be used?
- How can offtakes agreements be used and how will the costs of regenerative agriculture be passed on?
- How to value and monetize ecosystem services
- Identifying and scaling investment to the most promising emerging agriculture technologies and solutions
Alex Bashian, Director, Innovative Finance, The Rockefeller Foundation
Mary Beth Gallagher, Director of Engagement, Domini Impact Investments
Meryl Richards, Program Director, Food and Forests, Ceres
12:10pm
Fireside Chat: Developing an integrated approach to financing climate and nature
- Where are the key areas that can deliver co-benefits across both climate and nature?
- To what extent are investors linking their nature and biodiversity investment strategies to their emission reduction targets?
- How to evaluate the relative performance of net nature negative companies in sectors that are critical to the climate transition? How do you balance this trade-off where climate and nature interests diverge?
- How do we ensure that ecosystem services are properly valued and funded?
- What does a joint climate-biodiversity strategy look like? What data do you need to implement it?
12:35pm
Lunch
1:35pm
Panel: Managing investment opportunities and risks in forests and other landscapes
- How are trends in forestry and landscape investments evolving?
- How can investors evaluate the investment opportunities in forestry?
- Understanding and managing the risk and return profile of forestry assets
- How are technology innovations transforming how landscapes are understood and how impact is measured?
- How are carbon projects as a source of investment revenue evolving?
- How can financial institutions effectively capture and disclose deforestation data relating to their portfolios?
Alicia Robbins, Vice President of Natural Climate Solutions & Business Development, Weyerhaeuser
Jillian Dyszynski, Director of Market Development, American Forest Foundation
JP Gibbons, Sustainable and Impact Investing, Cambridge Associates
2:20pm
Fireside Chat: Unlocking the potential of Debt for Nature Swaps
- How to develop and extend the use of Debt for Nature Swaps – what are the barriers to scaling up the number and size of transactions?
- What are the opportunities and challenges for sovereigns, banks, investors and other participants in the deal?
- How do investors analyse their risk profile and impact given their complex structure?
- What can we learn from recent successful Debt for Nature Swap deals in terms of how they are structured?
- What impact can other innovative sustainable debt instruments like outcome bonds and sovereign sustainability-linked bonds have in catalysing more private finance to nature?
Patrick O'Connell, Director - Responsible Investing Portfolio Solutions and Research, AllianceBernstein
Ramzi Issa, Managing Partner, Enosis Capital
2:45pm
Panel: What does the future development of high-integrity biodiversity and carbon credit markets look like?
- What role can the biodiversity credit market play – can it be scaled up sufficiently to have a real impact?
- Who are the natural buyers for these credits and how will they use them? How will schemes align with buyer needs, nature-related risk disclosure and target setting?
- Will we see a revival of the Voluntary Carbon Market? What impact will the decision at COP 29 to operationalise Article 6.4 have?
- How prominent a role should quantifiable co-benefits have? How important are they to buyers?
- How to address buyers' concerns (including legal and reputational risk, double counting, additionality, integrity and verification)
Felipe Carazo, Head of Public Sector Engagement & Head of Alliance Management, Tropical Forest Alliance
3:30pm
Afternoon networking break
4:00pm
Fireside Chat: Blue finance – Addressing barriers to investment and scaling up the market
- Identifying and scaling investable opportunities in ocean and freshwater themes
- What are the different financial instruments needed to catalyse investment in blue finance?
- Are there opportunities to pool blue finance projects together?
- How to de-risk them to make them more attractive to larger investors
- Sourcing opportunities in the public equities market and engaging with companies
- What is needed to grow the blue bond market and develop guarantee facilities to support this?
- What role can parametric insurance play in protecting marine ecosystems, de-rising investments and enhancing climate change resilience?
Rolando F. Morillo, Portfolio Manager, Thematic Investing - Senior Vice President, Rockefeller Asset Management
4:25pm
Panel: Measuring and reporting impact in nature and biodiversity investments
- What does 'nature positive' actually mean and how should investors and corporates approach this to avoid accusations of greenwashing?
- Measuring nature-positive outcomes – Are we any closer to alignment and consensus on a unified set of state of nature metrics?
- What types of impact metrics are investors currently focusing on?
- What are the different challenges in measuring impact at a sovereign and corporate level?
- What role can technology play in monitoring and verification of outcomes in nature projects and how is this evolving? How can Nature Tech unlock new opportunities to source impact data that is more comparable, standardised and traceable?
Cari Ficken, Program Manager, Sustainability, Biodiversity & Ecosystem Stewardship, New York Power Authority
Lauren Compere, Managing Director & Head of Stewardship and Engagement, Boston Common Asset Management
Nuvneet Dhillon, ESG Specialist, PGIM Fixed Income
5:10pm
Chair’s closing remarks
5:15pm
Close of conference and networking drinks reception