Michael J. Ahearn, Founder and Partner, True North Venture Partners; Co-Founder, First Solar, USA
According to his official biography, Michael J. Ahearn “founded True North Venture Partners based on a belief that early stage companies in socially disruptive business sectors require a fundamentally unique approach to funding, growth and market expansion.” As an early-stage venture capital company, True North works with entrepreneurs engaged in new types of technologies, particularly energy, water, agriculture, and waste. As a co-founder of First Solar, Mr. Ahearn learned first-hand how to create new approaches to help his team effectively establish a globally transformative business that currently develops, finances, engineers, constructs, and operates photovoltaic power plants. He now applies these innovations to guide other entrepreneurs who want to shape important industries. First Solar’s CEO from 2000 to 2009, Mike now serves as its chairman. After an initial public offering in 2006, First Solar became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ and later became the first pure play renewable energy company to be listed on the S&P 500.
Jane Ambachtsheer, Partner and Global Head of Responsible Investment, Mercer Investments; Adjunct Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
In 2004, Jane Ambachtsheer established Mercer’s Global Responsible Investment team to advise investors on achieving long-term, sustainable investment outcomes. Her work includes helping investors in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the investment process. To date, Mercer, a global consulting company in talent, health, retirement and investments, has assigned ESG ratings to 5000+ mainstream investment strategies, built a database of sustainability-oriented investment funds, and advised investors representing more than $2 trillion in assets on climate change and strategic asset allocation. Jane was also a consultant to the United Nations in the development of the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). She has just been recognized as one of the 2015 Clean50, an annual award given to those who have done the most to advance the cause of sustainability and clean capitalism in Canada. Ms. Ambachtsheer was also selected to join Canada’s Clean16, representing the top nominee in the Financial Services category. If you would like to learn more information about investing in Canadian environmental stocks and shares, head to stocktrades.ca.
Mats Andersson, Chief Executive Officer, Fourth National Swedish Pension Fund (AP4), Sweden
Speaking recently at the World Bank Group, Mats Andersson emphasized that longterm investors must ask companies to put sustainability high on their agenda. Carbon is one of the biggest risks facing long-term investment portfolios, heexplained. As stated on its website, the objective of AP4, a Swedish government agency and one of the largest asset funds in Europe, is to “manage Fund capital for the best possible return over time and thus support the stability of the pension system” while taking into account environmental and ethical issues “without compromising the goal of best possible return” (AP4 manages about SEK 276 billion-approximately US$35.8 billion-in assets).
Cognizant of the ESG factors in their investment choices, fund executives at AP4 have been making decisions that reflect their concerns about the realities of climate change. CEO Andersson is guiding AP4 to take the lead in establishing transparency about ESG policies and asking the companies that they fund to do the same. In September 2014, AP4 was one of a group of leading institutional investors to join forces with the United Nations Environment Programme and its Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) to substantially reduce the carbon footprint of US$100 billion of institutional investment worldwide. In recognition of his leadership, Mr. Andersson won the Outstanding Industry Contribution award at the 2014 Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) Awards in Vienna.
Neil Z. Auerbach, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner, Hudson Clean Energy, USA
Mr. Auerbach is the founder and managing partner of Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a private equity firm that negotiates investments in the high-growth clean energy industry. Many within this space have chosen to find help at airquestinc.com to improve the hygiene and the environmental impact of their operations. Global in scope, Hudson is dedicated to investing exclusively in renewable power, alternative fuels, and energy-smart technologies in sectors including wind and solar energy, biofuels, biomass, geothermal energy, and energy efficiency and storage. Since 2007, Hudson has amassed a global clean energy investment portfolio in its flagship fund and, in 2013, established a solar infrastructure program in 2013. In partnership with Astrum, Hudson is committing up to $100 million through that infrastructure program to support the expansion of the residential solar market across the United States.
Formerly, Mr. Auerbach was a Partner at Goldman Sachs, where he co-founded the U.S. alternative-energy investment business within the Special Situations Group and led several of Goldman’s most successful investments in renewable energy. He is a member of the Leadership Council, American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), and serves on the Executive Committee of ACORE’s Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance. Mr. Auerbach is also a member of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, Commissioner on the National Commission on Energy Policy, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Project.
Dan Balaban, President and Chief Executive Officer, Greengate Power, Canada
Dan Balaban looks at financial obstacles to the development of renewable energy projects as challenges to overcome. He and his team at Greengate Power have developed wind energy projects across Alberta, Canada, by contracting sources of revenue and available transmission capacity. The eight wind energy projects they are developing across Alberta will total 1,450 MW on approximately 165,000 acres of private land. The 300 MW Blackspring Ridge in Western Canada is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20,000,000 tonnes over 25 years. It represents nearly $1 billion of investments in wind energy. In recognition of his innovative approaches to renewable energy and financing, Dan is a 2015 Clean16 honoree in the category of renewable energy generation. In choosing Dan as an outstanding contributor to clean capitalism, it was noted, “Alberta-based renewable energy developments are particularly difficult to finance, as there are no supporting, government-backed power purchase contracts. Despite this, Dan and team persevered.”
Julia Balandina-Jaquier, Member of the Investment Committee and Chairperson of the Audit Committee, Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM), Switzerland
Dr. Julia Balandina-Jaquier is an investment executive with 19 years of experience focused on sustainable private equity and finance. She serves on the Investment Committee and Board, and chairs the Audit Committee of SIFEM (Swiss Development Finance Institution, which manages a US$500 million-plus impact investment mandate of the Swiss Government).
Dr. Balandina-Jaquier began her career in 1993 at McKinsey & Co. and subsequently held various senior positions at ABB Financial Services and AIG Investments. She has been actively involved in the development of the impact investment market since 2005, when she pioneered one of the first institutional impact investment funds (within AIG) and led it until 2010. As an independent consultant, she has helped design and implement impact investment strategies and funds for a variety of clients, including private foundations, international banks, and the Swiss Government. She has led over US$1 billion worth of investments in 10 environmental technologies, renewable and conventional energy, healthy living, and infrastructure in emerging and developed markets and has served on the boards of seven companies.
Dr. Balandina-Jaquier is a frequent speaker at impact investing conferences and a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen MBA program on responsible/impact investing. She is the author of Guide to Impact Investing for Family Offices and High Net Worth Individuals. Dr. Balandina-Jaquier holds an MBA (with honors) and PhD in finance from St. Petersburg University of Economics & Finance, and is a CFA charterholder.
*Carter Bales, Chairman, Managing Partner, and Co-Founder, NewWorld Capital Group, LLC, USA
For 35 years, Carter Bales has worked in various capacities in the environmental field. His most recent focus is on environmental economics and how to cost effectively improve energy efficiency. In 2009, he co-founded NewWorld Capital Group, a private equity firm that provides capital and business assistance to companies in the environmental opportunities sector in the United States and Canada. Mr. Bales also writes and speaks about energy policies, research, and finance, advocating that the United States should develop a long-term approach to energy research and face the challenges of sustainable-energy investment. Learn more about Mr. Bales’s work here.
Scott Barrington, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, North Sky Capital, USA
North Sky Capital, an independent registered investment advisor that was established in 2000, launched a U.S.-based cleantech fund of funds in 2006. Since then, its focus, which included buyout and venture sectors, has expanded to include energy infrastructure and clean growth private equity. The company has built 14 private equity and energy infrastructure funds. It is involved in secondary investments, as well as growth equity, and favors growing companies with proven technology and market penetration, particularly in renewable energy, water, transportation, efficiency, agriculture, building materials, recycling, and waste-toenergy industries. Mr. Barrington is an active participant in the sourcing, analysis, and execution of investment decisions and a member of the firm’s investment committee. He also holds a seat on the Prevari Investment Board and worked at Piper Jaffray, where he served on the Merchant Banking Investment Committee. He earned his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and previously practiced law at Dorsey and Whitney LLP.
Jeanett Bergan, Head of Responsible Investments, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP), Norway
Jeanett Bergan’s work is to align KLP’s practices with principles of responsible investing by using exclusions, engagement, and investments as means to achieve sustainable development. KLP, Norway’s largest life insurance company, provides pensions and financial and insurance services to municipalities and counties, while incorporating social and environmental considerations in its daily operations. This is similar to how other life insurance companies operate. In particular, the company engages in sustainable development through its work with Norfund. Together, they co-invest in renewable energy in developing countries in Africa and with the Norwegian Microfinance Initiative. Another responsible investment practice of KLP is to exclude companies for ethical reasons, including being linked to the violation of human rights or “severe environmental degradation.”
In reporting to the CDP, the only global environmental disclosure system, Ms. Bergan said, “New technology and innovation is continuously improving business and corporate climate footprint. Still, a lot has to be done and particularly towards end users. Greater climate awareness and the introduction of real costs of goods and services incorporating the environmental impact and emissions costs is one important next step.” Recently, KLP has agreed to support the United Nation’s maximum two-degree global warming target, according to Ms. Bergan, and is considering cutting fossil-fuel companies from its NOK 7.5 billion investments.
David Blood, Co-Founder, Senior Partner, General Investment Management, LLP, UK
David Blood is Senior Partner of Generation Investment Management, a fund management business launched with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore in 2004. Generation has been dedicated to building a unique investment approach that simultaneously considers indicators of future business success as well as sustainability trends (as analyzed in the Harvard Business School case study on the firm). Successful in achieving a goal to be just one more investment firm that can use sustainability criteria to outperform, Generation has been successful to the point that it is not seeking additional assets under management.
Previously, David was CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. His responsibilities their involved portfolio management, sales and client service, risk management and infrastructure investments. David graduated from Hamilton College and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College, Social Finance, New Forests and SHINE and a member of the Investment Committee of the Acumen Fund. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Bridges Ventures.
Olivier Bonnet, Head of Responsible Investment, L’etablissement de Retraite Additionnelle de La Fonction Publique (ERAFP), France
Olivier Bonnet oversees implementation of ERAFP’s responsible investment policy across all of its asset classes, including equity, corporate bonds, sovereign bonds, and real estate. A €16 billion (US$21.8 billion) public pension plan based in Paris, ERAFP applies precise environmental, social, and governance screens to its investment allocations. This year, ERAFP added a decarbonization methodology that it developed with the French asset manager Amundi to significantly reduce “the carbon footprint of a €750 million portfolio managed on ERAFP’s behalf under an indexed management mandate.” According to ERAFP, this decarbonization methodology will contributes to its “approach of selecting only those companies with the best environmental, social, and governance profiles. It applies an additional filter based on their carbon-intensity data (CO2e emissions / sales): this excludes from the portfolio the overall 5% most polluting companies and the 20% most polluting companies in each sector.” In addition, ERAFP will continue to measure carbon and climate risks by supporting research and development initiatives. While the fund does not practice exclusions, it does ask for reports from its outside asset managers and hires outside analysts to compare the portfolios to ERAFP’s rules and policies.
Olivier graduated from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and earned a Master in Management from ESCP Europe. Before joining ERAFP, he was an SRI analyst at Vigeo, a French extra-financial rating agency. He also worked as a methodology and product development coordinator and developed customized research for institutional investors, methodology for sovereign bonds ESG rating, and did research on controversial weapons. He joined ERAFP in 2009.
Else Bos, Chief Executive Officer, PGGM, The Netherlands
Else Bos heads PGGM, a cooperative Dutch pension fund service provider that manages pension assets worth approximately EUR 170 billion for seven pension funds and 2.5 million people. A long-time advocate for ESG public-private policies and cooperation, Ms. Bos joined other leading investors in 2007 calling for a climate treaty and framework by declaring that “greater clarity on international climate policy and ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for industrialized countries would support us in our efforts to take better account of climate change in our investment decision making and help to safeguard our longterm investments. We believe that a robust policy framework is essential to give investors the confidence to mobilize the capital needed for a low-carbon economy.”
Aware that ESG factors can strongly affect their clients’ return on investment, Ms. Bos is also aware that the investments, businesses, and projects in which Journal of Environmental Investing 5, no. 2 (2014) 13 PGGM invests have a global impact. “I find it increasingly important that the financial sector makes its contribution to the sustainability of society,” Ms. Bos has said. PGGM has a strong incentive for directing funds into green growth areas and lowering investments in carbon-intensive industries: the Netherlands, where 60% of the population lives below sea level, is particularly vulnerable to the effects ofclimate change. Convinced that taking ESG factors into account contributes to good risk management, PGGM developed its own internal index to screen the companies in which it invests. The company continues to actively analyze the financial relationship between ESG factors and investments. Ms. Bos is also a board member of Sustainalytics, a company that offers sustainability research and consulting to financial firms, and is a board member of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.
James Cameron, Founder and Non-Executive Chairman, Climate Change Capital (CCC); Chairman of the Board of Directors, Senior Management, Think Tank (CCC), UK
James Cameron has spent much of his legal career working on climate change matters, including negotiating the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol as an adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States. As a barrister, he appeared in several of the leading cases in international and environmental law. He founded the 11-year-old CCC, an environmental asset-management and advisory business. The company’s asset management business develops and manages funds that invest in sustainable companies and projects. Its advisory team advises renewable energy companies, energy-intensive industries, financial institutions, clean technology companies, and governments on mergers and acquisitions, finances, strategies, and policies. In 2006, CCC developed and raised the world’s largest private sector carbon fund at EUR 850 million.
James is also the chairman of the Overseas Development Institute; a member ofHM Treasury’s Infrastructure UK advisory council; a member of GE’s ecomagination board; an advisor to the Climate Bonds Initiative; a trustee member of the UK Green Building Council and the Carbon Disclosure Project; and a member of the Advisory Panel for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s review of the International Climate Fund. He also served as a member of the Green Investment Bank Commission and the UK Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group (2010–2012). Before founding CCC, James was Counsel to Baker & McKenzie and the founder and head of their Climate Change and Clean Energy Practice. James has held academic positions in Cambridge, London, Bruges, and Sydney and is currently affiliated with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.
Mark Campanale, Founder and Executive Director, Carbon Tracker Initiative, UK
Mark Campanale founded the Carbon Tracker Initiative and conceived the “unburnable carbon” capital markets thesis. He commissioned and was editor of Unburnable Carbon, the Carbon Tracker Initiative’s landmark 2011 report on whether global markets are carrying a “carbon bubble.” The report directly inspired Bill McKibben’s seminal Rolling Stone 2012 article on the subject, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” At the Carbon Tracker Initiative, Mark is responsible for management strategy, board matters, and developing ongoing capital markets framework analysis.
When he formed Carbon Tracker, Mark brought with him twenty-five years of experience in sustainable financial markets. He is a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds at Jupiter Asset Management (1989), NPI, AMP Capital, and Henderson Global Investors. His work at Jupiter included the extant Jupiter Ecology Fund.
Mark served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999- 2003), and continues to advise a number of investment funds, including Armstrong Energy. He was a founder-director of the UK Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum (UKSIF), 1990-2006; is a member of the Advisory Council of the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB); the ImpactBase.org; and the UNEP-WRI working group on greenhouse gas emissions and the financial sector. He is also a trustee of The Rainforest Foundation UK and Chairman of Emerald BioEnergy. Mark has a BA in Politics & Economic History and an MSc in Agricultural Economics.
*John Chaimanis, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Kendall Sustainable Infrastructure (KSI), USA
KSI is a private equity firm that invests in low-risk and high-yield clean-energy assets. As a co-founder and managing director of KSI, John Chaimanis is focused on deal execution, investor engagement, and fund management. He began working in the clean energy field in 2005 and employs a strategy that evolved from his many experiences in the energy industry. He regularly advises clean energy startups and consults with investors who are looking to understand the clean energy investment landscape. Mr. Chaimanis holds an MBA from Babson College, a BS in Finance from Villanova University, and has earned certification from US SIF for Sustainable and Responsible Investing (SRI). Learn more about Mr. Chaimanis’s work here.
Paul Clements-Hunt, Founding Partner, The Blended Capital Group (TBCG), Switzerland
Paul co-founded TBCG with Neil Philcox to bring a mix of financial, legal, and policy expertise to clients who deploy capital to support strong communities, cleaner industry, and a rejuvenated environment. TBCG provides advisory services for groups raising capital across public and private capital markets; assessments of capital-raising strategies for entrepreneurs, companies, and communities seeking sustainability-focused finance and investment; and advisory work to assist with the communication of investment offerings to mainstream institutional investors as well as to high-net-worth individuals and family offices; and advisory services, including policy advice, for public and private organizations addressing ESG issues for projects across a range of asset classes.
In his 25-year career, Mr. Clements-Hunt has worked across business, investment, international affairs, and the media to promote the case for sustainable finance and responsible investment. Previous to founding TBCG, Paul was the head of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) from November 2000 to March 2012. He was a founding board member and UN representative to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an initiative supported by more than 1,000 of the world’s largest institutional investors representing more than US$32 trillion in assets. He also covered energy and environment for the International Chamber of Commerce and launched an environmental firm in Southeast Asia. He lectures regularly on finance, investment, and sustainability issues.
*Jeff Cohen, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, EOS Climate, USA
For over 30 years, Jeff Cohen has worked in the environmental field and developed a number of public-private partnerships across industry sectors to reduce GHG emissions. EOS Climate leverages carbon markets and innovative financial mechanisms as part of its goal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions through the destruction of ozone depleting substances. The company won in two categories of Environmental Finance publication’s 15th Annual Market Rankings (December 2014): Best Offset Originator North American Markets (California) and Best Project Developer, North American Markets (All). Learn more about Jeff Cohen’s work here.
David Crane, President and Chief Executive Officer, NRG, USA
A leader of NRG’s transformation from a regional wholesale generation business to a national, diversified energy company, David Crane is also a leading voice on the need for curbing carbon emissions. He was one of the first U.S. power industry 16 CEOs to call publicly for mandatory climate change measures. NRG has made it a priority to provide clean energy resources and technologies that are critical to competitive businesses as the world transitions to a sustainable, low carbon society. Among the company’s assets are natural gas, wind, oil, coal and solar, including the 250 MW California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR) photovoltaic (PV) generating facility; the 290 MW Agua Caliente Solar Project in Yuma, Arizona; and its newest operation, built by NRG with a group of investors, the Ivanpah, California, plant, the largest solar thermal project in the world. Completed in early 2014 and located in the Mojave Desert, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System generates nearly 400 MW of electricity, which is nearly double the amount of commercial solar thermal energy now generated in the United States.
Mr. Crane leads NRG’s efforts in the transition to a clean energy economy through repowering and retrofitting older coal plants, developing carbon capture technology, selling renewable and smart energy retail solutions, and building the nation’s largest privately funded network of electric vehicle fast-charging stations. He previously served as CEO of International Power PLC, a UK-based wholesale power generation company, and held positions at Lehman Brothers and ABB Energy Ventures in Sydney, Hong Kong, and New York. David is a BA graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and received his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.
Kristina Curtis, President, Green Century Funds; Senior Vice President, Green Century Capital Management; Member of Board of Directors, Green Century Capital Management, USA
Ms. Curtis has overseen the operations, administration, and finances for the Green Century Funds since the organization’s founding in 1991. She is also responsible for supervising the Funds’ investment managers and service providers. Complementing Green Century’s position as an investment firm founded by nonprofit environmental advocacy groups, its mission “is to provide people who care about the environment a way to invest for their future.” Green Century analyzes a company’s financial performance and uses negative and positive screens to evaluate the company’s environmental standards. Its inclusionary policies include energy efficiency and renewables; water treatment and/or conservation; air pollution control and/or prevention; environmentally sustainable companies; strong social and governance policies; and the implementation of sustainable practices amongst employees and throughout the supply chain.
In 2009, the Green Century Balanced Fund was the first U.S. mutual fund to report its carbon footprint. In discussing Green Century’s 2014 decision to become the third fossil-fuel-free diversified responsible mutual fund in the country, Ms. Curtis said, “We have a long tradition of incorporating information and analysis to hone our investment strategies as new issues emerge, so that we continue to meet our high standards for sustainable and responsible investments seeking competitive returns.”
Before working at Green Century, Ms. Curtis served as the finance director for several affiliated non-profit consumer and environmental advocacy organizations and as an organizer and program director for community and civil rights organizations in Virginia and North Carolina. She earned her BA at Brown University and her MBA at the Yale University School of Management.
Anna Davydova, CFA, Research Analyst, Fidelity Investments, USA
Anna Davydova is a research analyst for Fidelity Investments. Ms. Davydova assumed her current position within the Equity Research division in May 2008 and covers the environmental services sector, MLPs, and refining for Fidelity’s energy and utility team. Ms. Davydova joined Fidelity in 2005 as an equity research associate following coal, oil tankers, small-cap energy services, and select renewable energy companies. After being promoted to equity research analyst, she assumed the full coverage of the renewable energy space, including solar, wind, and other clean energy stocks. Her initial investment interest in the energy sector was sparked by her origins in Russia, a country with massive natural resources that continue to play an important role in the global energy markets today. However, her experiences while living in India and the United States drew her interest toward the environmental and alternative energy sectors as she recognized the global need for clean and sustainable solutions.
Ms. Davydova received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and Economics from Wellesley College and is a CFA charterholder.
Paul Decraemer, Senior Investment Manager and Head of Cleantech Investment
Practice, Capricorn Venture Partners, Belgium
In 2006, Paul joined Capricorn Venture Partners, a Belgium-based, independent manager of venture capital and equity funds. He is an expert in venture, expansion, and project equity capital in the sustainable technologies industry. The Capricorn Cleantech Fund invests in European innovative growth companies in a broad range of cleantech areas and under the general themes of fire/energy (including intelligent electrical power network technologies and clean power harvesting and conversion technologies); water (including membrane and affinity technologies); air (including decarbonization and CO2 storage technologies and the removal of nanoparticles); and earth (such as soil decontamination and biobased chemistry).
Paul serves on the Board of Directors of various European companies active in the fields of solar and thermal energy, photovoltaics, biodegradable packaging, and other environmentally positive technologies. He gained his initial clean tech experience while employed as the Managing Director at Sustainable Energy Ventures and as the Senior Investment Manager of Flemish Environmental Holding Company (VMH). He holds a Master of Bioscience Engineering degree from the University of Ghent and a Master’s degree in Financial Management from Vlerick Management School.
Tim Dixon, Professor of Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment, University
of Reading, UK
Tim Dixon has conducted extensive research on urban regeneration and sustainability in the built world, including cooperative projects with the European Investment Bank University Research Sponsorship (EIBURS) program on social sustainability and urban renewal; the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Green Gauge project, which examined the low carbon plans and strategies of the top 60 cities in the UK; and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC) program in brownfield research. Since 2001, Professor Dixon has been involved in securing more than £2.5 million for research from industry, the research councils, and other sources. He performs significant work as a consultant in the property sector to determine ways to measure social sustainability in property development and regeneration projects, including building on the work he developed and directed for the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development and EIB.
He began his career as a valuer and qualified chartered surveyor in the Valuation Office and then returned to academia to teach and earn a PhD in IT Applications in Land Management. Professor Dixon’s research and writing encompasses sustainable buildings, communities and cities; sustainable development and professional practice; urban regeneration and property development and investment; retrofitting across scales; and futures studies. He is the principal coauthor of Urban Regeneration and Social Sustainability and is a member of the editorial boards of four real estate journals dealing with sustainable property investment and management.
Jerome Dodson, Founder, President, and Portfolio Manager, Parnassus
Investments, USA
Mr. Dodson is the lead Portfolio Manager of the Parnassus Fund and the Parnassus Asia Fund, and the sole Portfolio Manager of the Parnassus Endeavor Fund, which had the strongest financial performance of an SRI fund of 2014, up over 17% year to date. Parnassus Investments manages the Parnassus Core Equity Fund, which is now the largest public mutual fund in the United States that is explicitly considering environmental factors and which has over US$12 billion in assets under management.
Before founding Parnassus Investments in 1984, Jerome served as president and CEO of Continental Savings of America from 1976 to 1982, where he started the “Solar T-Bill” program to finance solar energy installations. While at Continental, he also developed innovative programs to finance low- and moderate-income housing. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and his master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.
Leslie Durschinger, Founder and Managing Director, Terra Global Capital, USA
In 2006, Ms. Durschinger founded Terra Global Capital to promote results-based approaches to community-led forest and land-use emission reductions programs. Her work includes finding innovative ways to align development values and financially viable approaches to sustainable landscape management. Terra focuses on forest and land-use emission reductions program development and GHG analytics and finance. It provides technical expertise and investment capital to its global client base of governments, NGOs, and private companies in a collaborative and participatory manner. In 2014, Terra was one of 47 organizations to win a Conservation Innovation Grant totaling US$530,420 from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Terra project lowers the barriers to adopting low emission rice practices for growers by reducing the data collection and verification costs of creating offsets.
Before founding Terra, Ms. Durschinger, who had over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, held senior management positions in the areas of derivatives trading, investment advisory, algorithmic trading, risk management, and securities lending. She is a member of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) AFOLU Steering Committee; REDD+ Social & Environmental Standards Committee; VCS JNR Permanence Work Group; Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse (C-AGG) Advisory Committee; and W+ Standard Advisory Council. Among her previous employers are JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Global Investors, and Charles Schwab.
*Shin Furuya, Vice President, Responsible Investment and Engagement Specialist, Domini Social Investments; Lead Research Analyst, Nia Global Solutions, USA
Shin Furuya has been a member of the research team at Domini Social Investments since 2006, where he is Vice President of Responsible Investment Research and an Engagement Specialist. As the Lead Research Analyst for Nia Global Solutions, he is currently working to identify companies with disruptive technologies. Nia Global Journal of Environmental Investing 5, no. 2 (2014) 20 Solutions is a new investment strategy launched in 2013 by Domini Social Investments, LLC.
Mr. Furuya is a member of the advisory board of the EIRIS Conflict Risk Network. Before joining Domini, he had extensive environmental, social, and governance research and stakeholder engagement experience. Learn more about Mr. Furuya’s work here.
Al Gore, Co-Founder, Generation Investment Management; Founder, Alliance for Climate Protection, USA
Former Vice President Al Gore is co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, whose mission is “to deliver superior investment performance by consistently taking a long-term view and fully integrating sustainability research within a rigorous framework of traditional financial analysis.” One goal of the company is to counter the capital markets’ dominant short-term view, which indirectly encourages investors to avoid considering sustainability issues, such as climate change, corporate governance, or human capital management. Thus, a key element of Generation’s research is in understanding global challenges. The company conducts primary research on several global themes that may have material implications for businesses and nvestments, particularly climate change, pandemics, water, and demographics.
Mr. Gore spends the majority of his time as chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a non-profit devoted to solving the climate crisis. He is also a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a member of Apple, Inc.’s board of directors. Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982 and the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as theforty-fifth Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years. He is the author of Earth in the Balance; An Inconvenient Truth; Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis; and most recently, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. He is the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary and is the corecipient, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.”
Mark Gudiksen, Principal, TPGBiotech, USA
In 2008, Dr. Gudiksen joined TPG Biotechnology, a team of investors formed to translate discoveries and insights in the biomedical sciences into tangible products. TPGBiotech invests with scientific founders and business entrepreneurs to create novel companies and focuses on helping to drive the growth of its existing portfolio. Dr. Gudiksen’s focus is on healthcare and industrial biotechnology and the environment. Before he joined TPG Biotechnology, he was at McKinsey & Company, where he worked on a broad spectrum of strategic topics and merger and acquisition opportunities.
Dr. Gudiksen received his PhD in chemical physics from Harvard, and his BS in chemistry from Stanford. His doctoral work in nanotechnology was recognized with several highly cited publications in leading scientific journals, such as Science and Nature, as well as in general audience publications, such as Scientific American and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Gudiksen currently serves on the board of directors of several companies: Alphabet Energy, Inc.; Auxogyn, Inc.; ChemEOR Inc.; and Nodality, Inc. He is also a board observer at DNAnexus, Inc.
Jeffrey Immelt, Chief Executive Officer, GE; leader of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership; member of President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, USA
In his quest to pursue both efficiency and economics at GE, Mr. Immelt has overseen many of GE’s environmental investing innovations. Among these is the new GE Transportation’s Evolution® Series Tier 4 Locomotive, which lowers emissions by 70% and meets the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) stringent Tier 4 emission standards without the use of any type of after-treatment. GE expects that the Evolution® Series Tier 4 Locomotive will be the first mainline locomotive on the market to meet such standards. In other areas, GE has collaborated with countries and companies to install solar and wind power systems, and in early 2014, Mr. Immelt announced that GE is spending $10 billion to renew its “ecoimagination” initiative to invest in clean and efficient energy projects. Mr. Immelt has been the chairman of GE since 2001. He has held several global leadership positions since coming to GE in 1982, including roles in GE’s plastics, appliances, and healthcare businesses. In 1989, he became an officer of GE and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997. He earned a BA degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1982.
*Garvin Jabusch, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Green Alpha®Advisors, LLC, USA
In addition to being a co-founder and the chief investment officer of Green AlphaAdvisors, LLC, Garvin is co-manager of the Shelton Green Alpha Fund (NEXTX), the Green Alpha Next Economy Index, and the Sierra Club Green Alpha Portfolio. An asset-management firm, Green Alpha Advisors was founded in 2007 with a focus on investments in companies that follow environmental stewardship as part of doing business. Its “Next Economy” investment approach identifies companies and innovations based on sustainable principles and potential for ecoefficient growth. Garvin previously managed the Sierra Club Stock Fund and the Sierra Club Equity-Income Fund at Forward Management, LLC. He also served as Vice President of Strategic Services at Morgan Stanley, where he contributed to various global projects. Learn more about Mr. Jabusch’s work here.
Bruce Jenkyn-Jones, Head of Listed Equities and Managing Director, Impax, UK
As the Managing Director of the Listed Equity team, Mr. Jenkyn-Jones oversees Impax’s long-only investment strategies and is responsible for the development of the investment process, research, and team development. He also has an active role in the day-to-day management of all Impax-listed equity portfolios. When Bruce joined Impax in 1999, he worked initially on venture capital investments before developing the listed equity business.
Impax Asset Management manages about US$4.6 billion (£2.9 billion) for institutional and high-net-worth investors globally. The listed equity funds seek those companies they consider to be mispriced and set to benefit from the long-term trends of changing demographics, urbanization, rising consumption, and the resultant increases in resource scarcity. The company focuses its investment on a small number of researched global-equity strategies across markets related to alternative energy, energy efficiency, water, waste, food and agriculture. Impax received a 2014 Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development Before joining Impax, Bruce worked as a utilities analyst at Bankers Trust and as an environmental consultant for Environmental Resources Management (ERM). He has an MBA from IESE (Barcelona), an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, and a degree in Chemistry from Oxford.
Ma Jun, Chief Economist, Research Bureau, People’s Bank of China, China
At a recent Green Finance Roundtable in China, Ma Jun spoke about green finance measures that China needs to embark upon: expanding carbon markets; initiating green bonds with lower financing costs and greater support from the government; establishing green banks and green insurance; providing green education for consumers; ensuring environmental risk disclosure; and initiating a green investors network. His proposals counter an over-abundance of financing for infrastructure projects that don’t account for environmental effects and instead cause pollution and resource damage. However, China is moving toward renewable projects, setting a goal of tripling the generation of solar energy. Ma also spoke in favor of longer dated green bonds to mitigate the risk of having average loan durations of about three years, while possibly requiring more than 10 years to service. The longer terms could help local governments manage the financing.
From 1988 to 1990, Ma Jun was with the Development Research Center of China’s State Council. He was an economist and senior economist at the IMF and Journal of Environmental Investing 5, no. 2 (2014) 23 World Bank from 1992 to 2000. In 2000, he joined Deutsche Bank. He was voted the number one economist in Asia and the number one China analyst in Institutional Investors’ polls during the period of 2009–2012. Ma has a master’s degree from Fudan University in Shanghai and a PhD in economics from Georgetown University.
Thomas Kabisch, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, MEAG Munich ERGO Asset Management GmbH, Germany
Dr. Kabisch was chosen to set up and run MEAG as its CEO in April 1999. He is responsible for the mandate, management, and central functions of the fund for sustainable and entrepreneurial action at MEAG. To fulfill its mandate, the company engages in research on climate change and sustainability in its investments and evaluates them accordingly . MEAG sees its investment funds as demonstrating that economic, ecological, and social requirements need not be a contradiction in terms.
The equity fund MEAG Nachhaltigkeit, which was set up on October 1, 2003, invests primarily in companies that conduct business in a responsible manner throughout the world. The fund selects companies that are known for their environmentally friendly and socially responsible behavior as well as for their financial success. This means the fund supplements leading equities with forward looking niche providers. Most of the company’s external clients are institutional investors, such as pension funds, corporations, and other insurance firms, although it also manages mutual funds for private investors. MEAG manages approximately EUR 190 billion in assets on behalf of customers in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Dr. Kabisch’s previous experience includes his election in 1992 to the executive board of ALBINGIA-Versicherungsgruppe. There, he shared responsibility for the investments, finance, and internal-audit divisions until 1999. Before that, he served in the securities and funds division at Vereinsund Westbank. He served or serves on the boards of various institutions abroad and in Germany. Dr. Kabisch studied business administration and economics in Germany and in the United States.
*Bruce Kahn, Portfolio Manager, Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM), USA
Bruce has over 25 years of experience in environmental and investment research and management. Currently, he serves as a portfolio manager at Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM), a global investment management firm that combines a disciplined alpha-generating process with sustainable investing principles. Previously, Bruce was a director in Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division, where he acted as an investment strategist and conducted analytical research on sustainable investing. Bruce also managed a sustainable investment portfolio at Citi Smith Barney across a broad mix of sectors, including sustainability leaders, agribusiness, cleantech, and renewable energy companies. Bruce is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in the Sustainability Management Program and holds a PhD in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Learn more about Mr. Kahn’s work here.
Abyd Karmali, Managing Director, Climate Finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UK
Since March 2014, Abyd Karmali has been the managing director of Climate Finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. From 2007, he had served as Lynch’s managing director and global head of Carbon Markets. Mr. Karmali is widely considered one of the world’s foremost experts in climate finance and its mechanisms, having provided senior strategic advice to governments, UN agencies, and scores of European, American, and Asian companies. He acts as Special Board Advisor to the Climate Markets and Investment Association (CMIA), having been its President from 2008 to 2013. He is also one of two inaugural private sector representatives to the new UN Green Climate Fund, whose mandate is to scale up low-carbon finance to emerging markets. In 2008, his team at Merrill Lynch won Environmental Finance magazine’s Carbon Finance Transaction of the Year and The Banker Award for Most Innovative in Sustainability. For two decades, Mr. Karmali has worked on climate change and financial markets, often with a goal to mobilize climate finance to scale.
Abyd’s additional appointments have included service as a board member of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA); a member of Her Majesty’s Treasury Carbon Market Expert Group; a member of the World Economic Forum (Davos) Steering Committee for Advancing Low-Carbon Finance; an advisor to the Carbon Disclosure Project; and an advisor to the Commission to establish Britain’s first Green Investment Bank. He was previously employed with ICF International in Washington (DC), Toronto, and London. In 1996 and 1997, he was a Climate Change Officer at the United Nations Environment Programme’s Industry Office in Paris, and he participated in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. Abyd is frequently called upon by the media; has been interviewed for TV and radio by BBC, CNN, NPR, and CNBC; and has been cited in print media, including the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Australian, Financial Post, and the Economist.
Abyd’s voluntary sector activity has included serving as chairman of Just Energy, a not-for-profit social enterprise recently set up by Oxfam to work with low-income communities in developing countries. The program works with the communities to maximize revenues from medium-sized renewable energy businesses and to increase the supply of clean energy. Mr. Karmali holds an MS in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures, USA The entrepreneur, investor, and technologist
Vinod Khosla founded the firm Khosla Ventures to help entrepreneurs build pioneering energy and technology companies. The company raises funds to invest in green-tech, sustainable start-up firms, with a particular interest in the development of biofuels and other alternative energy sources. Through the Khosla Seed fund, he targets and invests in high-risk scientific and technological projects that would be denied funding elsewhere. Vinod formed Khosla Ventures to focus on both for-profit and social-impact investments. Before founding Khosla Ventures, Vinod established several other companies, some of which failed. One success he had in 1982 was with the standards-based Sun Microsystems, which builds workstations for software developers. As the founding CEO of Sun, Vinod pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. He is also currently a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals that was founded in 1992 and has more than 40 chapters in nine countries today. Vinod earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a master’s degree in business administration from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Sean Kidney, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Climate Bonds Initiative, UK
The Climate Bonds Initiative is an investor-focused not-for-profit based in London. It works internationally to mobilize debt-capital markets to fund a rapid, global transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy.
The Initiative advises development banks, investors, governments, and NGOs about structuring programs to maximize the advantage of public-sector resources. These programs include building green investment banks, green securitization, and sustainable financial solutions for large-scale energy-efficiency schemes. Projects include developing proposals for the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Climate Action on Europe’s role in mobilizing private-sector capital for climate solutions; helping to organize a green bonds workstream for the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit; and working with the Chinese Government’s State Council on growing green bonds in China.
The Climate Bonds Initiative also runs an International Standards and Certification Scheme for climate bonds. Investor groups representing assets of US$22 trillion sit on its board, and some 50 organizations are involved in its development and governance structure.
An experienced international speaker, Sean has, over the past year, spoken at conferences and seminars in Toronto, New York, Boston, Washington DC, Paris, Frankfurt, Utrecht, London, Casablanca, Doha, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Sydney. Sean is a member of the German International Aid Ministry’s TRANSfer Expert Group on “Using Climate Financing to Leverage Sustainable Transport,” a director of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, and a director of the Be Earth inter-governmental organization. He served as a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Expert Committee on Climate Finance, is a social marketer and publisher, and was previously an award-winning marketing advisor to a number of the largest Australian pension funds.
*Matthew Kiernan, Founder and Chief Executive, Inflection Point Capital Management (IPCM); UK
Inflection Point Capital Management (IPCM) was founded in 2009 and has roughly $1 billion under advisement. The firm will be launching new, environmentally driven investment strategies in both listed real estate and climate finance in early 2015. Its strategies are built around combining traditional fundamental and quantitative financial analysis with IPCM’s proprietary research on forwardlooking, “non-traditional” drivers of risk and return. Before founding IPCM, Dr. Kiernan had been the founder and Chief Executive of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, an investment research and advisory boutique that was rated as first in the world in the sustainable-investment space by institutional investors. He also had served as director of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Geneva and as a senior advisor to the Secretary General of the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Learn more about Mr. Kiernan’s work here.
Nanno Kleiterp, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board, Entrpreunerial Development Bank (FMO); The Netherlands
Nanno Kleiterp was appointed as CEO and chairman of the Management Board of FMO in 2008. Before that, from 2000 to 2008, he was responsible for FMO’s risk bearing profile as Chief Investment Officer. From 1987–2000, he held a number of positions within FMO, including manager of small- and medium-sized enterprises, regional manager of Latin America, and chief finance officer. FMO, the Dutch development bank, operates under the belief that entrepreneurship is key to creating sustainable economic growth and improving people’s quality of life. Because of this conviction, the bank finances businesses, projects, and financial institutions in developing and emerging markets, with the Journal of Environmental Investing 5, no. 2 (2014) 27 aim of supporting sustainable private-sector development. The bank’s investments are focused in the sectors where its contribution can have the largest long-term impact: financial institutions; energy; and agribusiness (food and water).
Nanno gained extensive experience in private-sector development while working in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Peru. He joined the board of IUCN NL in April 2013. He is a member of Worldconnectors and of the Amsterdam Institute of Finance Advisory Council. He sits on the Advisory Board of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), serves on the board of the Natural Capital Coalition, and serves as the CEO of the Association of European Development Finance Institutions.
Zoe Knight, Head, Climate Change Centre of Excellence, HSBC, UK
Zoe Knight joined HSBC in 2010 as a Director of Climate Change Strategy in Global Research and was appointed head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence in early 2014. She has been an investment analyst at global financial institutions since 1997, initially focusing on Pan European small-cap equity strategy and subsequently moving into socially responsible investing, covering climate change issues. She is a regular speaker at events such as the UN Investor Network on Climate Risk, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, and at the House of Commons for the All Parliamentary Group on Water and Sanitation in the Third World. Throughout her career, she has been ranked in Extel and II. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Bath.
Zoe previously worked for Absolute Strategy Research, Cheviot Asset Management, Merrill Lynch, and UBS. While at Merrill Lynch, she originated the sustainable and socially responsible research effort, which included thematic research on climate change issues; worked with sector analysts to integrate ESG issues in stock recommendations; and worked with companies and investors on effective disclosure of CSR issues. Zoe speaks at conferences around the world and has contributed a chapter on energy efficiency to the book Investment Strategies for a Low Carbon World.
Shawn Kravetz, Founder and Fund Manager, Esplanade Capital, USA
Esplanade Capital Electron Partners LP, one of two funds managed by Shawn Kravetz, was one of the first pure-play solar sector funds. It is a private investment fund dedicated to public securities in solar energy and those sectors affected by its emergence. Shawn founded Esplanade Capital to manage capital for a small number of families, private investors, and institutions. Its other private investment partnership is Esplanade Capital Partners I, LLC. The company focuses on a variety of sectors: retail, consumer products, casino gaming, business services, education, and solar power.
Shawn earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Harvard University and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar. His previous experience was as a principal at the Parthenon Group, a leading strategy consulting firm. Before that, he was director of Strategic Planning and Corporate Development for CML Group, a New York Stock Exchange company. In addition, Shawn worked at Monitor Company and the Sara Lee Corporation. The proprietary Esplanade Capital investment strategy grew from his wide-ranging business and market experience.
Claudia Kruse, Managing Director, Sustainability & Governance, APG, The Netherlands
As Managing Director, Sustainability & Governance, Claudia Kruse is part of the management team of APG Asset Management that reports to the Board. Claudia’s nine-people-strong team implements the responsible investment policy on behalf of APG and its pension fund clients across all asset classes. This policy includes a commitment to actively seeking investments in solutions to social and environmental challenges. In response to this commitment, APG invested EUR 15 billion in 2013. Moreover, in 2014, APG made the commitment to double its investments in renewable energy within three years. Overall, APG’s assets under management on behalf of Dutch pension funds is EUR 400 billion.
Before joining APG in 2009, Claudia worked on the buy and sell-side in responsible investing in London, as associate director of governance and sustainable investing at F&C Asset Management and as head of ESG research EMA at JP Morgan. Claudia has been engaging with companies on environmental issues for many years, including as a member of the steering committee of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) in 2006–2007. In the mid-1990s, she worked in China in a solar collector joint venture between the National Solar Energy Research Institute and Daimler Benz Aerospace, and also with environmental education projects in China. She has published on the “Governance of Sustainability” and the integration of ESG factors into remuneration, which reflects her strong belief in the connection between good governance and sustainability.
Currently, she is on the board of Eumedion, the Dutch corporate governance and institutional investor organization. She chairs the integrated business reporting committee of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and is a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). She was recognized as a “Rising Star of Corporate Governance” by the Millstein Centre in 2008 and included in the list of 40 under 40 by Financial News and AiCIO.
Andrew Lackner, GE Ventures: Senior Director, Energy Ventures, USA
Mr. Lackner leads investments in the power, water, and energy management markets. He has managed GE’s investment in over 40 companies that are developing promising energy technologies and disruptive business models. In 2007, Andrew joined the GE energy-focused venture-capital team, then a part of GE Energy Financial Services. He managed the US$100 million investment program of the ecomagination Innovation Challenge, GE’s first open innovation program, and focused on finding promising partners in the renewables, electrical grid automation, and smart buildings markets.
His previous experience includes working as an investment professional at Columbia Capital; as a strategy consultant for early stage companies and corporate venture capital programs at Fletcher Spaght; and in product management at MicroStrategy. Andrew received his Master of Engineering Management, Bachelor of Engineering, and Bachelor of Arts in Engineering Sciences from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Tony Lent, Senior Managing Director, Wolfensohn Fund Management, LP; USA
Tony Lent is a managing director of Wolfensohn Fund Management with oversight for clean energy. He has 19 years of private equity investment and financial advisory experience focused on low-carbon energy and natural resources. He serves on the Investment Committee and has board roles in a joint venture with GE Energy in wind development in Eastern Europe and in OPX, a renewable chemicals company.
From 2003 to 2009, he was a co-founder, managing director, and president of US Renewables Group, a US$750 million private equity group focused on proven renewable energy and scaling promising energy technologies. He assembled the founding management team, shaped the firm’s investment strategy, and led or participated in fourteen deals spanning solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, first- and second-generation biofuels, and energy storage. From 1994 to 2002, he co-founded EA Capital and was a managing director of the financial advisory firm, focused on cleantech commercialization and the development of funds in renewables, carbon, and sustainable forestry. From 2005 to 2010, Mr. Lent served on the Investment Committee of the Sea Change Fund, an impact venture fund focused on sustainable fisheries-linked investments. He received an MBA from UC Berkeley, and a BS in biology from Tufts University.
Mark Lewis, Senior Analyst for Energy and Climate Research, Kepler Cheuvreux, France
Kepler Cheuvreux is a leading independent European financial services company specializing in advisory services and intermediation to the investment management industry. It is considered a truly entrepreneurial business because its employees and management own 38.3% of the equity. Mr. Lewis is a part of the sustainability research team at the Kepler Cheuvreux, Research Division. In a 2014 Kepler Cheuvreux report Stranded Assets, Fossilised Revenues, Mr. Lewis wrote that “Under a global climate deal consistent with a 2°C world, Kepler Cheuvreux estimates that the fossil-fuel industry would stand to lose US$28trn (in constant 2012 US dollars) of gross revenues over the next two decades, compared with business as usual. . . . The report concludes that there is an opportunity for the oil industry to engage in a transparent dialogue with investors on the carbon risks it faces and thus provide a transparent stress test of its business model against potential future climate-policy scenarios.” Mr. Lewis’s research on power, gas, and emissions markets has been ranked Number 1 by the benchmark Energy Risk survey of global commodities investors in 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008.
Mr. Lewis previously served as a managing director of Commodities Research and head of Energy Research at Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division. The markets he covered included European Union natural gas, power, and carbon allowances. He has 14 years of experience as a financial analyst of European energy markets, and worked before that as an academic at London University. He is a member of the advisory board at the Carbon Tracker Initiative. Mr. Lewis holds an MPhil from Cambridge University, an MA from London University, and a BA in modern languages and economics from Sheffield University.
Susan MacArthur, Managing Partner, Greensoil Investments, Canada
Greensoil Investments is an investment house with a portfolio of venture-capital and private-equity funds. It focuses on investing in companies that create value by offering products and services that enable smart and efficient utilization of resources such as time, energy, electricity, water, people, and land. Designated a 2015 Clean50 winner in the category “Angels: Investors & Eco System Support,” Susan McArthur was recognized for the Building Innovation Fund, a growth-equity fund investing in companies that provide products, services, or technologies that make real estate assets more efficient. It will leverage its network of building owners and developers for the benefit of its portfolio companies. The award noted the significance of the fund, given that the real estate industry is “the largest single user of natural resources.”
Susan worked previously as a senior investment banker at Jacobs Securities, advising on a wide range of renewable energy transactions, including the financing of offshore wind in the North Sea and North America’s only lithium mine. She has advised clients on transactions, including acquisitions and divestitures, public and private equity and debt financing, capital restructuring, and other strategic initiatives. She also worked at Rothschild Canada Limited in Toronto; Lazard Freres & Co in New York and Paris; and The First Boston Corporation in New York; and will remain a special advisor to Jacob Securities. She is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario.
Donald MacDonald, Chairman, International Investors Group on Climate Change (IGCC); Trustee Director, BT Pension Scheme, UK
Mr. MacDonald serves as the chairman of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), an investor forum for collaboration on climate change. Its purpose is to encourage public policies, investment practices, and corporate behavior that address long-term risks and opportunities associated with climate change. There are currently 85 members, including some of the largest pension funds and asset managers in Europe, representing around €7.5trillion of funds under management.
Mr. MacDonald is also a trustee at BT Pension Scheme (BTPS), which has about 340,000 members, of whom over half are presently pensioners. It is the UK’s largest corporate pension scheme. It is a defined benefit (final salary) scheme that was closed to new members some years ago. BTPS appointed Hermes Equity Ownership Services (EOS) to assist with its responsibilities as a long-term shareholder. Through EOS, BTPS believes it receives the highest standard of stewardship for its shareholdings, carried out by a team that brings about corporate change through a focused and value-oriented approach. In particular, social, ethical, environmental, and governance issues are key areas of corporate and policy engagement for BTPS and they are present in all of EOS’s engagement analysis, which is itself based on the Hermes Principles.
Mr. MacDonald previously served as the chair of Principles for Responsible Investment and as the telecom-organizing officer for the Communication Workers Union (in the UK), 1999–2004. He is currently a member of the Marathon Club, whose goal is to stimulate pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors and their agents to take greater account of the long-term in their thinking and actions.
Karen Meidlinger, Founder and Managing Partner, Meidlinger Partners, USA
Meidlinger Partners invests in, grows, and develops water technology and product and service companies that have scalable solutions for addressing the world’s water problems. These solutions include cleaning and treating water and wastewater in an energy-efficient manner that also meets governmental standards. The company provides late-stage venture and growth equity to private lower market companies in the United States and Western Europe. It looks for significant minority and control stakes in profitable and near-profitable companies in the water industry with annual revenues primarily in the US$2 to US$20 million range.
A trained scientist, Dr. Meidlinger earned her BSc in marine biology from the University of Liverpool and her PhD in marine ecology from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. Her scientific field and postgraduate work took her to such places as Antarctica and Mozambique before she decided to pursue an MBA at the University of Cape Town, which led to her interest in entrepreneurship. She then applied her ecological systems training to developing business strategies for start-up companies. She has served as the associate director of the Wharton Small Business Development Center and as a project director at Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs. She joined the University City Science Center in 2000, and Johnson & Johnson in 2005. At J&J, she spent 4 years leading various innovation management projects and identifying new technologies that would drive future business growth for the corporation.
Andrew W. Mitchell, Founder and Director, Global Canopy Programme;
Co-Founder and Director, The Natural Capital Declaration, UK
Andrew W. Mitchell is a leading authority on forest canopies and related climate change issues. His extensive field experience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America combines with a thirty-year career spanning research, journalism, broadcasting, policy, and global project management. In 2001, he founded the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), an international network linking 38 leading scientific institutions in 19 countries engaged in research, conservation, and education for investigating the impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem service in forest canopies. In his capacity as founder and director, Andrew has coordinated the growth of GCP into an influential alliance, using networks developed within the international science community to offer a global perspective on science, policy, and finance for forests.
The Natural Capital Declaration, co-founded by Andrew, is a finance sector initiative, endorsed at the CEO level, to integrate natural capital considerations into loans, equity, fixed income and insurance products, as well as in accounting, disclosure, and reporting frameworks. Andrew is also a co-founder of the UK Corporate Environment Responsibility Group, which now incorporates over 30 blue-chip companies. He has advised on environmental policy and marketing strategy for companies including McDonalds, Barclays, and British Airways, and has actively lobbied governments throughout the world, as well as at the United Nations Conventions on Biological Diversity and Climate Change, on climate mitigation and adaptation policy. He is a former Research Associate of the Zoology Department, University of Oxford, and was the former Rufford Research Fellow in Environmental Understanding, at Green College. He is the author of seven books, including The Enchanted Canopy, and many articles for newspapers and magazines. His work has been translated into six languages.
Tom Murley, Director and Head of Renewable Energy, HgCapital, UK
Tom Murley founded and leads HgCapital’s Renewable Energy team, which, with €900 million raised, is one of Europe’s largest institutional renewable energy funds. Tom has over 20 years of experience in financing renewable and conventional power projects and working on over €5 billion in investments. He has several industry roles, including serving as non-executive director and member of the Investment Committee of the UK Green Investment Bank, chairing the British Venture Capital Association cleantech committee, co-founding and co-chairing the Low Carbon Finance Group, and serving as a director of the Norwegian Wind Energy Association. He joined HgCapital in 2004, founded the renewable-energy investment team, and raised its first dedicated fund in 2006, following two years of sector research. In 2011, it closed its second dedicated renewable-energy fund. The team invests in utility-scale renewable-energy projects in Western Europe via proven technologies, such as onshore wind and small hydro, and by using an infrastructure-fund-investment approach.
Tom formerly co-headed the Allianz Private Equity’s renewable energy team, and was previously with the EIF Group. Tom has degrees from Northwestern University and Fordham University School of Law.
Amy Muska O’Brien, Managing Director and Head of the Responsible Investment Team, TIAA-CREF Asset Management, USA
Amy Muska O’Brien joined TIAA-CREF in 2005. As the managing director and Head of TIAA-CREF’s Responsible Investment Team, she currently leads the implementation of the company’s responsible investment policies and its ESG work, which includes ESG-focused funds, integration frameworks and its community and impact investing portfolios for the asset management division. Previously, Ms. O’Brien served as director of corporate social responsibility at the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ, where she developed and implemented socially responsible investment strategies and served as the research manager at the Council on Economic Priorities, the non-profit research firm that led the way in the field of corporate social and environmental responsibility ratings for investors and consumers.
Ms. O’Brien earned a BS in biology from Boston College and an MS in environmental management and policy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In the past, she has served on several boards, including the Board of Directors of the Social Investment Forum (SIF), a national nonprofit membership association dedicated to advancing investment practices that consider environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria. In 2014, she was named to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Initiative’s Reporting and Assessment Steering Committee.
Mary O’Malley, Vice President, Environment and Sustainability, Corporate Governance, Prudential Financial, Inc., USA
Ms. O’Malley oversees the strategy for, and the coordination of, sustainability initiatives across Prudential’s businesses and corporate functions that promote the company’s long-term vitality and value creation. Prudential’s commitment is to foster clean and renewable energy and energy efficiency, in its own operations and in its investments by reducing its operational footprint, investing sustainably, and engaging internal and external stakeholders.
Additional responsibilities of Ms. O’Malley include performance measurement and reporting on those initiatives to external stakeholders, as well as to Prudential’s Board of Directors. She is also the founding chair of Prudential’s Environmental Task Force. Ms. O’Malley has been with Prudential for more than 35 years and has held various positions in the departments of corporate social responsibility, corporate communications, issues management, and human resources. Previously, she served as vice president, local initiatives in the community resources department. In that position, Ms. O’Malley was responsible for directing and managing Prudential’s public involvement efforts worldwide. She currently serves as a member of the Global Advisory Council of Cornerstone Capital, as a participant in the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Leaders Forum, and as a trustee of the nonprofit Citizens Campaign. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts.
J. Harald Örneberg, Founder, the Forest Company Ltd; Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Timber Capital Ltd; Co-Founder, Director, and Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Manager, Channel Islands
The Forest Company invests in sustainable forest plantations in South America. The company’s CEO, J. Harald Örneberg, has also been a principal and shareholder of The Investment Manager since co-founding the firm in June 2007. The Investment Manager is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, negotiating, completing and monitoring investments for the Forest Company. The Forest Company Limited is a closed-ended investment company that was founded in 2007 in order to take advantage of investment opportunities in trees, timberland, and timber-related assets. It focuses on forest plantations in areas with high biological growth rates, such as Brazil and Colombia. The Forest Company has raised US$300 million in equity capital through private placements to institutional investors, family offices, and management. Thus far, the company has committed capital to five projects, which include both greenfield and standing plantations located in Brazil and Colombia. The Forest Company’s vision is to become one of the leading investors in sustainably managed forest assets and to provide competitive real investment returns for the company’s shareholders. In keeping with its vision, the Forest Company seeks to invest in forestry projects that are or will be certified by a reputable forest-management certification scheme. The company does not acquire native forest for harvesting.
Before forming the Investment Manager, Mr. Örneberg was the founder and CEO of ORN Capital. From 1999 to 2005, he was manager of the ORN Event Fund and from 2002 to 2007, the manager of the ORN Multi-Strategy Fund. Before founding ORN, he served as vice president in the merger arbitrage group of Salomon Smith Barney; was an investment manager at Industri Kapital (originally Enskilda Ventures, a division of SEB); worked in the mergers and acquisitions group of Enskilda Securities, also a division of SEB; and was a financial analyst in the investment banking division at Salomon Brothers. Mr. Örneberg received an MBA from The Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1990 and a BSc in monetary economics from the London School of Economics in 1986. He has extensive experience in the Swedish forest industry, where he has managed forestry assets for the past 20 years.
William H. Page, Senior Vice President, Essex Investment Management Company, LLC, USA
Bill is a Portfolio Manager on the Essex Global Environmental Opportunities Strategy (GEOS) and directs environmental investment policy and research for Essex. Before joining Essex in 2009, he spent eleven years at State Street Global Advisors (SSgA); worked in product management for Wellington Management Company, LLC; and worked for Fidelity Investments in asset allocation. During business school, Bill worked on socially responsible investment research at KLD Research & Analytics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Boston University and an MBA from the F.W. Olin School of Business at Babson College. Learn more about Mr. Page’s work here.
Kyung-Ah Park, Head of the Environmental Markets Group, Goldman Sachs, USA
Kyung-Ah Park is head of the Environmental Markets Group for Goldman Sachs, which oversees and supports its global environmental initiatives. She manages the Center for Environmental Markets, which partners with corporations, NGOs, and academic institutions to advance market-based solutions to environmental challenges. Thus far, Goldman Sachs has helped finance over US$20 billion in renewable energy, having previously committed to investing over US$40 billion during this decade.
Ms. Park also serves on the firm’s Physical Commodity Review Committee. Previously, she was a vice president in the Industrials Group within their Investment Banking Division and an executive director of Goldman Sachs Asia, LLC, where she worked in an advisory capacity with regional clients. She joined Goldman Sachs’s mergers and acquisitions department in New York in 1998 and was named managing director in 2010. She previously worked as a management consultant for McKinsey in Korea and South Africa and received her MBA from Harvard Business School.
*Kevin Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM); Board of Directors of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, USA
Mr. Parker has over 33 years of experience on Wall Street and over 17 years of experience in entrepreneurial ventures in impact investment, organic farming, and e-commerce. As the CEO of Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM), he oversees this New York-based global asset-management firm, launched in 2013. SICM combines a disciplined, alpha-generating process with sustainable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles. It is backed by Capricorn Journal of Environmental Investing 5, no. 2 (2014) 36 Investment Group and the Kresge Foundation. Previously, Mr. Parker served as a member of the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank from its inception in 2001. He also served as the global head of Asset Management, where he was responsible for managing a broad range of assets, including equities, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, private equity, hedge funds, sustainable investments, and other businesses. Learn more about Mr. Parker’s work here.
Howard Pearce, Founder and Executive Director HowESG, UK
HowESG is an independent consultancy that provides specialist technical advice and develops innovative and implementable solutions in a range of areas, including strategy development, business planning, and project management; corporate social (environmental) responsibility (CSR) and governance; sustainable (environmentally) responsible investment (SRI) and reporting; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and strategies. HowESG was established in 2013 and incorporated as a limited company in 2014.
Howard has over 35 years of senior management experience in the water, sports, leisure, environmental, and financial sectors at local, regional, national, and international levels. As the head of Environmental Finance and Pension Fund Management for the UK Environment Agency (March 2002 to May 2013), Howard was responsible for the pensions of 22,000 members and the investment of £2.1 billion, including 0.25 million allocated to real assets. Under his leadership, the EAPF won numerous United Kingdom, European Union, and global awards for its financially and environmentally responsible investment strategy. The Environment Agency Pension Fund (EAPF) was the first UK fund to have an “environmental overlay strategy,” to sign up to the UN PRI, and to produce a Responsible Investment Review. Howard is also non-executive trustee of Above and Beyond, an NHS hospital charity, and a board member of Cowes Harbour Commission. He was previously a Member of the Environment Agency’s pensions committee and a director of a local environmental trust funded by Landfill Tax.
Rebecca Pearce, Director, Sustainability, CBRE, Australia
CBRE is a worldwide, full-service real estate services company. As the director of CBRE’s sustainability agenda in the Pacific region, Rebecca Pearce leads sustainability strategy development and implementation for the Australia and New Zealand division. Her leadership focuses on regionally appropriate initiatives that are in line with CBRE’s global corporate commitments. In addition to overseeing the management and reduction of CBRE’s corporate environmental footprint, Rebecca works to raise internal company awareness of sustainability opportunities and innovations. She also works with the senior management of U.S. and Asia sustainability teams to promote the company’s global best practices. Ms. Pearce was instrumental in the achievement of CBRE’s carbon neutrality and certification under Australia’s National Carbon Offset Standard.
Rebecca’s responsibilities also include assisting CBRE leaders and clients by identifying sustainability risks and opportunities and drafting responses to changing legislation and market trends. She works across the CBRE team to create practical sustainability strategies for clients to add value to their portfolio and their business. Rebecca has considerable international experience in the construction and property sector. She joined CBRE after 2 years in the Middle East working with the Sustainability Advisory Group, advising organizations on business strategy, performance, and governance in relation to their social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Previous roles include co-leadership of Westpac’s Sustainability Strategy, leadership roles in Westpac’s Property division, and senior architectural positions in the United Kingdom and Australia.
*Torben Möger Pedersen, Chief Executive Officer, PensionDanmark, Denmark
Mr. Möger Pedersen leads PensionDanmark, a labor market pension fund established in 1993 that offers defined contribution pension, insurance, and health care products on the basis of collective agreements covering 660,000 individuals employed in 25.000 companies within the private and public sector. Its total assets are 170 billion DKK, and are growing rapidly. In 2014, Mr. Möger Pedersen was appointed to the UN Green Climate Fund’s Private Sector Advisory Group. He is also a newly appointed member of the World Economic Forum network Global Agenda Council on Climate Change. In 2013, the British magazine Environmental Finance named him the “Environmental Finance Personality of 2013” in recognition of his active contribution to the UN’s work with climate investment and in recognition of PensionDanmark’s role as an international leader among pension funds that are making direct investment in large sustainable energy projects. Learn more about Mr. Möger Pedersen’s work here.
Nancy Pfund, Founder and Managing Partner, Double Bottom Line (DBL)
Venture Capital, USA
DBL Investors is a venture capital firm whose goal is to combine top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, economic, and environmental returns in the regions and sectors in which it invests. As a proponent of impact investing, DBL has helped to reveal the power of venture capital to promote social change and environmental improvement.
Ms. Pfund currently sponsors or sits on the board of directors of several companies, including SolarCity (on the audit and compensation committees), Bright-Source Energy, Primus Power, Ecologic Brands, EcoScraps, OPX Biotechnologies, PowerGenix, and, before their public offerings, Tesla Motors and Pandora Media. Before founding DBL, Ms. Pfund was a managing director in Venture Capital at JPMorgan, and began her investment career at Hambrecht & Quist in 1984. She has also taught and worked with universities, and in 1988, she was appointed by President Bush to be a charter member of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. In 1999, Ms. Pfund was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Congressional Web-based Education Commission.
Ms Pfund writes and speaks on impact investing topics and is the coauthor with Benjamin Healey of the report on the history of U.S. energy subsidies, “What Would Jefferson Do? The Historical Role of Federal Subsidies in Shaping America’s Energy Future”; coauthor with Michael Lazar of “Red, White & Green: The True Colors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs”; and coauthor with Noah Walker of “Ask Saint Onofrio: Find-ing What Has Been Lost in A Tale of Two Energy Sources.” Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Alex Rau, Principal and Founding Partner, Climate Wedge, Ltd, USA
Alex brings nearly a decade of experience in carbon finance, emissions trading, and environmental commodities to his work at Climate Wedge Ltd, an independent carbon management and investment advisory firm. The team at Climate Wedge pursues principal investments and GHG reduction project development in the carbon markets, and provides carbon finance and emissions-trading related advisory and asset management services to corporations, financial institutions, and low carbon technology providers around the world. Together with its partners, Climate Wedge develops, structures financing, and transacts a pipeline of proprietary CDMand renewable-energy projects, which offer buyers of compliance credits a solid stream of high-quality emissions reductions. The company is exclusively focused on developing, financing, and maximizing the financial value of carbon assets.
Alex was previously part of the Climate Change Services team in PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Energy Corporate Finance practice in London, where they worked at developing and structuring portfolios of carbon assets during the early stages of the Clean Development Mechanism market as well as designing Kyoto response strategies for multinational corporations. He has worked on carbon related issues with numerous clients, including Cheyne Capital, McKinsey & Company, Rio Tinto, News Corporation, Electricite de France, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), and CSIRO. Alex is also a coauthor of the original version of the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the most widely accepted trading standard for non-Kyoto carbon assets, and has published in journals ranging from Science to the Harvard Business Review. He has a PhD in physics from Oxford University, a BA from Cornell University, and is a CFA charter holder.
Nick Robins, Co-Director, Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, UNEP, UK
Nick Robins, who has over 20 years of experience in the policy and investment areas of sustainable development, is now playing a lead role within the United Nations regarding the design of financial systems. He was previously the head of HSBC’s Climate Change Centre of Excellence, where his research included coverage of climate bonds, evaluation of the potential risks of stranded assets from carbon constraints, estimates of the growth prospects of the global low-carbon economy, and analyses of country-level “green stimulus” following the financial crisis of 2008. Nick won numerous Thomson Extel awards for his analysis work during this period.
Before his work at HSBC, Nick was head of SRI funds at Henderson Global Investors, where he led a team in deploying SRI as anticipatory research, combining engagement with action. For example, Henderson anticipated problems ahead of time with then-public company Railtrack, first engaging with it, and then selling out before the Hatfield disaster and before the company’s nationalization. Henderson also identified systemic safety failings at BP ahead of the Texas City incident and sold its stock before the Gulf of Mexico crisis. Nick launched the concept of investor climate accountability, having performed the world’s first climate audit of an investment fund at Henderson in 2005, an idea now evolving into what is known as the UNEP Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition, which seeks commitments of portfolios to “decarbonize” US$100B or 20% of their portfolio holdings before the 2015 COP 21 meetings in Paris. Nick also helped launch the Henderson Industries of the Future fund.
Nick and Simon Zadek are currently co-directors of the UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, which seeks to catalyze actions necessary to enable the financial system to support a transition toward an inclusive green economy. To achieve its aim, the Inquiry has mapped current best practice and is drawing together principles and frameworks, while advancing new thinking and laying out options for advancing a sustainable financial system. The Inquiry is also contributing to related initiatives across the UN system in the lead-up to COP 21. Nick is the author of several books, including The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (2006), and co-editor with Cary Krosinsky of Sustainable Investing: The Art of Long-Term Performance (2008).
Walter Schindler, Managing Partner and Founder, SAIL Capital Partners, USA
Mr. Schindler co-manages all aspects of SAIL’s operations and investments. His primary responsibilities include capital, finance, operations, exits, and communications. SAIL pursues a proprietary venture-capital strategy, investing in leading sustainable-innovation companies. It looks for companies that focus on solving critical global natural-resource challenges by using pioneering technology and excellent management, such as in energy and water technology.
Under Walter’s leadership, SAIL has been selected by the World Economic Forum as a member of its Community of Global Growth Companies. In addition, the United States Department of Commerce has chosen SAIL Capital to co-lead with Deutsche Bank the U.S. Trade Mission on Clean Energy to Germany and to participate in the first Impact and Sustainable Trade Mission to Europe with investor meetings in Zurich, Amsterdam, and London.
Recently, Walter was elected to the Board of Directors of Fulbright Canada. He also serves on the board of directors of CNS Response Inc.; the North American advisory board of The Cleantech Group; the advisory board of US Bank; and is a member of the Chief Executive Roundtable of the University of California at Irvine.
Walter’s previous experience included serving as the partner in charge of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Orange County, California, office, where his 19-year career involved advising clients on IPOs and mergers. He earned his BA, MA, and PhD from Yale University and his JD with honors from Harvard Law School.
Jigar Shah, President and Co-Founder, Generate Capital, USA
Jigar Shah recently co-founded Generate Capital, a specialty finance company that builds, owns, operates, and finances infrastructure assets involving the world’s critical resources: energy, water, agriculture, and basic materials. He previously founded and served as CEO of SunEdison (NASDAQ: SUNE), where he pioneered “no-money-down-solar” and unlocked a multibillion-dollar solar market, creating the largest solar-services company worldwide.
After SunEdison, Jigar served as the CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change. Generate Capital, the Carbon War Room, and SunEdison all follow from Jigar’s vision that business-model innovation will have an outsized impact on bringing about the next productivity revolution-resource efficiency. He is committed to helping both entrepreneurs and large companies implement resource-efficiency solutions by using “no-money-down” project-finance models. Jigar, the author of Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy, earned his MBA from the University of Maryland and a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
Pascal Siegwart, Partner, Aster Capital, France
Aster Capital invests in startup companies within the fields of energy, resources, and connectivity. Pascal joined Aster Capital in 2011 and leads investments in the areas of advanced and bio-based materials, CO2, and energy. He is responsible for managing the company’s investment in Avantium and FibeRio.
Before joining Aster, Pascal was CO2 operations director at Rhodia and Orbeo and energy purchasing director at Rhodia Energy. He was in charge of developing worldwide CO2 offset projects in the Kyoto protocol frame for Rhodia and Orbeo. Orbeo is a pure-carbon joint venture between Rhodia and Société Générale, formed to develop market solutions to fight climate change. Pascal acquired over 10 years of industrial experience within the Rhodia group, where he held several positions in France and Italy, including as a corporate strategy project manager, plant manager, and quality manager. An engineer, Pascal graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris and holds a master’s ASc in biotechnology from the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal in Canada.
Masayoshi Son, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of
Softbank, Japan
Mr. Son founded SoftBank in 1981. In recent years, Mr. Son has consolidated several arms under the central SoftBank brand. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in economics and is one of the richest men in Japan. He was just named, once again, CEO of the year in a survey of Japanese small-business leaders by the Sanno Institute of Management.
Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Mr. Son became increasingly involved in clean and efficient energy technologies, particularly in fostering Japan’s switch to renewable energy. In 2011–2012, SoftBank began working with Mitsui on a 39.5 megawatt solar-power facility in Japan, just one element of a planned investment in a nationwide solar-power network. In 2014, Japanese telecom giant SoftBank invested $7 million in startup Altaeros Energies, which has developed helium-filled, high-altitude wind turbines that generate clean energy. Despite some roadblocks to the development of renewable energy in Japan, SoftBank continues toward its goal and has built or is planning 20 solar- and wind-power facilities in Japan. It is also working on wind generation in the Gobi desert, confident that the deregulation and decentralization of electricity will speed the development of wind, solar, and geothermal energy.
Mr. Son has served or is currently serving on many boards, including those of Sprint and Alibaba.
Tom Soto, Managing Director and Investment Committee Member,
TCW/Craton, USA
A recognized expert on the economics of climate change and the prosperity tied to reducing greenhouse gases, Tom Soto was recently named by Poder 360 Magazine as one of the Nation’s Top 100 Latino Green Leaders and was one of Hispanic Business Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Latinos of 2010.
In September 2013, TCW purchased Craton Equity Partners II, a private equity firm focused on growth investments in technology and service companies that promote sustainability and/or social responsibility. TCW|Craton seeks strong returns for its investors by investing in high-growth companies that will enhance the environment and society, including companies that enable class mobility by providing services to underserved communities.
Before working at Craton Equity Partners II and TCW/Craton, Tom’s business experience included Cabrillo Fuels, where he was the largest minority producer of ethanol fuel in Southern California, and PS Enterprises, his own consulting firm, where he worked with fortune 500 companies, such as American Airlines and Verizon, and the government, including the White House, in insuring compliance with new and stricter environmental regulations. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the State Department’s Border Environmental Cooperation Commission and more recently co-led the Executive Office of the President Barack Obama’s transition team for the White House Council on Environmental Quality from November 2008 to January 2009. Tom also serves on the Board of Liquid Environmental Solutions, a leading provider of non-hazardous liquid waste services. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA.)
Lee Stein, Creator and Chairman, Prize Capital, USA
In 2006, Lee Stein formed Prize Capital, LLC, to support the X Prize Foundation and to fund global competitions aimed at discovering innovative solutions in the areas of energy and the environment. Prize Capital’s mission is to implement innovative financing techniques to facilitate radical breakthroughs, particularly in the fields of energy and the environment. Its proprietary financing mechanism combines inducement prize competitions with companion investment funds to create a platform that mitigates early stage investment risk to investors and facilitates the greater flow of capital to early-stage innovators.
Since its inception, Prize Capital has broadened its focus to include other for profit opportunities that recognize the value of natural capital. The world’s ecosystem services and natural capital are estimated to average $33 trillion per year, most of which is outside the market. Prize Capital envisions using Venture Philanthropy to create sustainable financing instruments that will value healthy ecosystems, and the benefits they provide, as an asset in both developed and developing nations.
Lee brings many years of experience as a business executive and entrepreneur to his current activities as a business-minded environmentalist. He is credited as a co-inventor of e-mail messaging payment systems, and in 1994, he co-patented what has been describes as described as the world’s first Internet-banking (payment) system. EBay subsequently acquired the issued patents. In 2000, he formed Virtual Group, LLC, a private holding company focused on early-stage technologies. Lee has a BS from Syracuse University and a JD from Villanova.
*Erik-Jan Stork, Senior Sustainability Specialist, APG Asset Management, The Netherlands
The pension provider and asset manager APG has a nine-person sustainability and governance team that is responsible for providing advice on responsible investment policy and supporting the investment teams in implementing this policy across all asset classes. As the senior sustainability analyst at APG, Erik-Jan is also APG’s principal climate expert. He leads the measurement and interpretation of the carbon footprint of APG’s listed equity investments, which APG communicated in its Responsible Investment Report for the first time in 2013. His responsibilities include advancing the integration of environmental and social factors in the investment process for listed equities and corporate bonds. As a climate specialist, he is a member of the board of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change and actively engages in dialogue with policy-makers on climate policy. He previously worked for KPMG and Shell. Learn more about Mr. Stork’s work here.
John Streur, Chief Executive Officer, Calvert Investments, Inc., USA
John Streur is the new CEO of Calvert Investments as of January 1, 2015, replacing Barbara Krumsiek, who is stepping down from her role as president and CEO after 17 years of leading Calvert Investments. Ms. Krumsiek will remain on the Board of Calvert Investments, Inc., and will be launching a new research institute, the Calvert Institute, focused on advancing the field of sustainable and responsible investing. Meanwhile, Mr. Streur, most recently the president, director, and principal of Portfolio 21, will be building on Calvert’s engagement with ESG factors as institutional and private investors continue to see the value of sustainable investing.
John has been engaged in global investment management for over 25 years. Before working at Portfolio 21 (a management firm specializing in global environmental investing), he was the CEO of Managers Investment Group, LLC, which he co-founded, and President and Trustee of the Managers Funds. He has also been an organic cattle rancher. John has a BS from the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is a competitive athlete in the sport of rowing and sculling and won the gold medal at the FISA World Masters Rowing Championships in 2013.
Dawn Turner, Head of Pension Fund Management for the Environment Agency
Pension Fund (EAPF), UK
Dawn Turner is a CIMA qualified accountant. She was appointed head of the Pension Fund Management following senior roles in finance within the Environment Agency. The fund has about 42,000 members and £2.4 billion assets. It was 90% funded at its triennial valuation on 31 March 2013. The EAPF was the first local government pension scheme (LGPS) fund to be a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) in July 2006 and is ranked number one in the Asset Owners Disclosure Project for management of climate change. Dawn is responsible for the South West frameworks for legal advice, actuarial benefits, and investment consultancy.
Dawn joined the Environment Agency in 1999 and has led high-profile workforce planning and restructuring initiatives and assumed senior-level financial responsibilities. In addition, her experience in the public and private sectors includes project management, mergers, and the liaison across government departments and private-sector providers of outsourcing initiatives. Dawn’s considerable commercial experience in the private sector started early with a key role in the flotation of the fashion and household company Laura Ashley and the merger of the brewing and retail company Courage.
Roger Urwin, Global Head of Investment Content at Towers Watson, UK; Advisory Director, MSCI Barra, USA
Mr. Urwin joined Watson Wyatt in 1989 to start the firm’s investment consulting practice. Under his leadership, the practice grew to a global team of 500. At Towers Watson (formerly Watson Wyatt), Roger served as global head of investment consulting from 1995 to 2008, before becoming the global head of investment content. He also currently leads the firm’s change consulting to asset owners.
For MSCI Barra, Roger advises on key projects relating to the international asset-owner community on a part-time basis. As an author of papers on asset allocation policy, manager selection, and governance, Roger also speaks, writes, and consults on sustainable-investing practice for best long-term investing. Over the years, he has focused on the area of best-in-class investment governance, which is still a major topic of his research and writing.
Before joining Watson Wyatt in 1989, Roger headed the Mercer investment practice and led the business development and quantitative investment functions at Gartmore Investment Management. He serves on the Board of the CFA Institute and INQUIRE (the Institute for Quantitative Investment Research). Roger has been a member of the MSCI Editorial Advisory Board since its inception in 1998. He has a degree in mathematics from Oxford University and a master’s in applied statistics, also from Oxford. He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1983.
*Tony Van Bommel, Senior Managing Partner of the Industrial, Clean, and
Energy (ICE) Technology Venture Fund, BDC Capital, Canada
A champion of the cleantech sector for 14 years, Tony shapes BDC Capital’s investment direction. He oversees the C$152 million ICE Fund; since 2012 alone, ICE has invested or reserved over C$70 million in 18 transactions across 14 technology companies. These companies employ over 700 people and generate revenues of C$100 million. Before joining BDC, Tony spent four years at InNOVAcorp, a General Partner for the Nova Scotia First Fund, an early-stage, knowledge-based venture fund While there, he helped implement a venture capital program and provided assistance to emerging technology companies. Tony earned the Dalhousie Governor General’s Gold Medal for the top graduate student chosen from all faculties at Dalhousie University and the gold medal from the Dalhousie University MBA program. He received his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Western Ontario. Learn more about Mr. Van Bommel’s work here.
Anne Mieke van der Werf, Director, Energy and Climate, Triodos Investment
Management, The Netherlands
As the director of energy and climate, Anne Mieke van der Werf is responsible for managing and developing new and existing investment activities in the renewable energy sector. She is a CFA certified economist with considerable experience in business development, corporate and project financing, and institutional investments.
Triodos Investment Management has over 20 years of experience in renewable energy investing. As part of its mission to make money work for positive social and environmental change, Triodos has funded hundreds of sustainable-energy projects across Europe. The company has three energy funds: Triodos Groenfonds (EUR 650 million), which finances renewable energy, organic farming, sustainable real estate, and nature-conservation projects; Triodos Renewables Europe Fund (EUR 58 million), which offers complimentary risk capital through equity or subordinated loans, supporting small- and medium-sized developers of renewable energy; and Triodos Renewables (GBP 67 million), which finances, develops, owns, and operates projects that generate clean, green electricity from renewable sources.
Before joining Triodos Investment Management in 2012, Anne Mieke worked on renewable-energy project evaluations, the divestment of several companies, and financial and resource planning for both corporations and non-profit organizations. Anne Mieke started her career at ING Investment Management and holds a master’s degree in macroeconomics and monetary theory from Maastricht University.
Wal Van Lierup, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Chrysalix Energy
Venture Capital, Canada
Since co-founding Chrysalix EVC in 2001, Wal has sourced, invested in, and advised numerous early-stage cleantech startups that are building innovative solutions for the new-energy economy. He is directly responsible for helping to raise more than $1 billion for early-stage technology ventures. The firm is actively invested in 15 portfolio companies, including GlassPoint, MineSense, General Fusion, GaN Systems, InvenTys Thermal Technologies, and Axine Water Technologies.
Before founding Chrysalix EVC, Wal spent several years as the vice president of strategic planning at Westcoast Energy, which he helped sell to Duke Energy. He also advised energy, chemicals, and financial services blue-chip companies on innovation and change management while working as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Wal has founded several new ventures and clean energy organizations including New Ventures BC. He is a member of the Cleantech Group’s Advisory Board and has written several books and scientific articles. Before officially joining the corporate world, Wal worked for almost a decade as an associate professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, doing research in economics and econometrics, and consulting with businesses, governments, and major international institutions. He also has an extensive teaching background in venture capital and entrepreneurial finance, both in North American and Europe. Wal holds a PhD in economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Phillip Vernon, Managing Director, Australian Ethical Investment, Australia
Phillip Vernon has 25 years of experience in financial services, covering funds management, superannuation, and capital markets. He was a member of the Executive Committee of Perpetual Limited, heading up its Corporate Trust division and also has extensive experience in corporate governance and industry regulation, including a long involvement with the Australian Securitization Forum, Australia’s peak body representing the securitization industry in Australia. Phillip has a long involvement in sustainability and corporate social responsibility and is a director of Planet Ark, a not-for-profit environmental organization.
Australian Ethical Investment is a superannuation and investment fund manager with over 20,000 members who have invested more than AU$800 million. The firm invests in companies it deems “highly ethical” through positive screening, a process that it emphasizes over negative screening (however, it does exclude companies on several grounds, including those involved in uranium mining). It is particularly interested in companies involved in the sectors of renewable and clean energy, healthcare, efficient transport, biotechnology, recycling, waste management, and natural food production. (However, it does exclude companies on several grounds, including those involved in uranium mining.)
Stephen Viederman, Vice Chair, Network for Sustainable Financial Markets;Chair, Finance Committee of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation; FormerPresident, Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation; shareholder advocate; author; speaker, USA
Among the range of topics that Stephen Viederman currently tackles are sustainable investing and fiduciary duty; philanthropy and democracy; higher education and public policy; the limits of corporate responsibility; and economic and environmental justice and community governance. His main focus is to develop a holistic understanding of fiduciary responsibility consonant with not-for profit organizations’ obligations to serve the public benefit. As an active shareholder, both personally and as a representative of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, he is leading discussions with ExxonMobil and Chevron on the financial risks of climate change. Mr. Viederman retired in 2000 from the presidency of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation where, in the early 1990s, he developed and guided the effort to harmonize the foundation’s asset management with its grant making, including some of the first impact investments in responsible growth companies. Learn more about Mr. Viederman’s work here.
*Daniel Wild, Head of Sustainability Investing R&D, and Executive Committee
Member, RobecoSAM, Switzerland
In his position, Dr. Wild oversees the organization, strategy, methodology, and investment process of Research and Product Development at RobecoSAM. He is responsible for the identification and integration of financially material ESG factors into the investment strategies of RobecoSAM as well as those of its parent company, Robeco. Founded in 1995, RobecoSAM has 20 years of experience
promoting environmental investing to institutional asset owners and financial intermediaries. As of June 2014, Robeco managed EUR 111.5 billion in ESG-integrated assets, which is 50% of the group’s EUR 223 billion in total assets under management. In 2009, Daniel introduced the water-related risks criteria to the CSA, which not only ensured that participating companies became aware of such arising risks, but also demonstrated best-practice examples and encouraged firms to use water resources more efficiently.
Daniel holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from ETH Zurich (1987–1993) and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) (1993–1997). He pursued postdoctoral research studies at Stanford University between 1997 and 1999. Learn more about Mr. Wild’s work here.
Philippe Zaouati, Chief Executive Officer, Mirova (a subsidiary of Natixis Asset
Management), France
In order to accelerate the development of its responsible investment activities, Natixis Asset Management created the management company Mirova in 2013. It is Mirova’s ambition to become an international leader in responsible investment within the next five years. To achieve Mirova’s goals, Philippe and his team are working on fine-tuning a more stringent group of ESG criteria than those in the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). “We want to strengthen our position as a committed and innovative player in the vanguard of responsible investment, theme-driven investment management, and infrastructure projects on an international scale,” he explains.
As of 2014, Mirova’s assets under management total approximately EUR 4 billion across asset classes, including equities, bonds, impact investing, and infrastructure. In 2014, Mirova launched Mirova Eurofideme 3, a fund focused on renewable energy infrastructure projects, mainly in the wind and photovoltaic space. The fund, which targets professional investors only, aims to raise 200 million euros and generate a net TRI of 10% to 11%. Mirova’s renewable energy team has invested in 66 projects (including 31 wind farms) and has supported the construction of production facilities generating 700 megawatts of clean energy. Formerly the deputy chief executive officer of Natixis Asset Management (one of the asset management companies of the BPCE Group with EUR 294 billion assets under management), Philippe was responsible for business development and responsible investments. Previously, he held different roles (quantitative portfolio manager, financial engineer, product marketer, executive director) at Banque Internationale de Placement, Sogeposte, CDC Group, La Banque Postale, and Credit Agricole. He graduated from Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE) and from Institut des Actuaires Français (IAF).
