Final speaker line-up announced for RI New York conference on 4-5 December

The final speaker line up for the RI New York conference on 4-5 December has been announced as the number of expected attendees reaches 600+, including 150+ asset owners. Link to the RI New York agenda.

RI New York features a welcome address from Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, plus keynotes from Abigail E. Disney, the celebrated US documentary filmmaker, Jeffrey Sachs, the US economist, and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Alain Deckers, Head of Unit, Corporate Reporting, Audit and Credit Rating Agencies, DG FISMA, at the European Commission.

The conference plenaries and break-out panels examine some of the most pressing financial and sustainability challenges and debates for investors in North America and beyond. 

Alain Deckers, European Commission

The keynote from the EU’s Alain Deckers segues into a major plenary on ‘how regulators are now driving corporate and financial sustainability requirements’. It comes as the EU is taking major steps towards internationalising its work on sustainable finance via the EU Action Plan on Sustainable Finance, notably in the US and Canada, with the recent high-level launch of a new International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF) in Washington DC.

Another hot-button plenary, titled “Investors and tech giants: creating accountable and sustainable growth models", looks at the risks to tech stocks of increasing action by regulators on antitrust, privacy, political interference and freedom of speech concerns.

In tandem with the COP 25 climate summit hosted by Chile but taking place in Madrid, the RI New York programme has vital investor plenaries and panels on investing and the environment.

A plenary titled: ‘The future of global energy: How is the energy transition and investor engagement on the challenge of climate change changing the sector?’ examines if the market is responding to growing concerns on climate from scientists and the public, and whether the actions of the world’s largest energy companies, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco, are an indicator of change.

A panel titled ‘private wealth and sustainability-linked returns’ delves into the increasing generational shift by HNW investors to look at sustainability themes as long-term economic disruptors and blended capitalist/philanthropic campaigns. 

The panel, featuring speakers from the Citi and UBS wealth teams, looks at how big the HNW demand for sustainability-themed investment really is, and why? 

It takes an evidence-based look at how family offices are thinking about growing sustainability allocations in their portfolios and what insights and access to sustainability-related returns they are tapping into. 

Hugh Wheelan,
Responsible InvestorBertrand Millot, CDPQ

Other features of the RI New York 2019 conference include a fireside chat between Bertrand Millot, Head of Stewardship at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a representative of US pension fund giant, CalSTRS, and Hugh Wheelan, Managing Editor, Responsible Investor, on the work of the Net Zero Asset Owners’ Alliance, a United Nations-convened international group of institutional investors representing more than $2 trillion in AUM committed to transition investment portfolios to net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. 

RI New York 2019 is part of Sustainable Finance Week which takes place during the first week of December in New York, featuring a suite of top-level events that discuss innovative and visionary ideas on how to mobilize the next $10 trillion in sustainable investment.