Agenda

Platform opens and event welcome:

10.00 Chair's welcome.

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

Alternative Data Case Studies:

• Case Study 1: Using Earth Observation to ask better questions - Alex Money, Managing Director, Oxford Earth Observation (OxEO)
• Case Study 2: Greenwashing Detection Data - Professor Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Chair in Operational Risk, Banking & Finance, University College Dublin

Welcome and opening comments (8.00 in NYC and 14.00 in Europe)

Keynote Address: EFRAG’s contribution to the sustainable finance agenda

Saskia Slomp, CEO, European Financial Reporting Advisory Group

Panel Discussion: The future of corporate sustainability reporting – Joining the dots between corporates, investors and data providers

• Improving the comparability, coverage and accuracy of data from corporate disclosures
• Increasing standardisation of CSR frameworks and reported metrics – Update on the Better Alignment Project and other harmonisation initiatives
• Can communication of company disclosures be automated to enable real-time sharing of commonly requested data between different reporting frameworks?
• Are investors and data providers now driving decisions by companies on what data is financially material and how will this impact the usefulness of ESG data?
• Are standardised metrics and reporting of underlying ESG factors, where mandated by regulators and stock exchanges, the only way to achieve significant improvements in ESG data quality, materiality and coverage?
• How should investors and data providers effectively engage with companies to drive improvements in ESG data disclosure?

Moderator:

Peter Munro. Head of Investor Relations, Sustainable Finance, European Investment Bank

Panelists:

Ben Caldecott, Director, Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme and Associate Professor, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
Harriet Howey, Head of Non-Financial Reporting, Diageo
Piet Klop, Senior Advisor Responsible Investment, PGGM Investments
Susanne Stormer, Chief Sustainability Advisor, Vice President, Novo Nordisk

Panel Discussion: Making commercially available ESG data and ratings more valuable to investors

• Do commercial ESG ratings provide a good indicator of ESG risk?
• Standardising the quality of data, timeliness and criteria used by providers to analyse ESG issues
• Improving data coverage especially in emerging markets, non-listed companies and across different asset classes
• Capturing ESG issues that are truly financially material and understanding how this varies across companies, sectors and time horizons
• Providing investors with greater context around ESG ratings and scores
• Does lack of correlation between ESG ratings providers matter? Addressing the growing demand for increased transparency on rating methodologies
• What does the consolidation of data providers mean for investors? Will it result in a more seamless integration of sustainability data with other financial data?

Moderator:
Meggin Thwing Eastman, Executive Director, Global ESG Editorial Director, ESG Research Director, EMEA, MSCI

Panelists:
Gema Esteban Garrido, ESG Investors & Non-financial Reporting Director, Telefónica S.A.
Jason Channell, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Finance, Citi Global Insights, Citi
Justin Kew, ESG Analyst, Carmignac
Nicole Becker, Senior Sustainability Manager, Asset Management, Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK)

Panel Discussion: Using advanced analytics and data science to unlock the potential of innovative alternative data sources

• Understanding how key tools including AI, machine learning, NLP, geospatial mapping and big data analytics can enhance ESG analysis by tapping into predictive, forward-looking alternative data
• How are leading asset managers using alternative data to improve their investment decisions and does it add real value for asset owners?
• Which types of alternative ESG data offer the greatest potential impact for investors?
• Can alternative data be used to validate and audit reported data?
• The challenge of extracting financially material information from large unstructured data sets and making this accessible and decision-useful for portfolio managers
• Balancing risk and reward - What data privacy, legal and social implications should users consider when accessing certain types of alternative data?
• How are investors and data providers developing the specialist expertise required to integrate alternative data into their ESG analysis and is this becoming a competitive differentiator?

Moderator:
Ian Stannard, Analytics and Data Engagement Manager, Urgentem

Panelists:
Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Chair in Operational Risk, Banking & Finance, University College Dublin
Jeroen Bos, Head of Specialised Equity & Responsible Investing, NN Investment Partners 
Thomas Roulland, Head of Responsible Investment Solutions, Models and Tools, AXA Investment Managers

Panel discussion: Making an impact – Achieving standardisation in impact data collection, measurement and reporting

• What metrics do companies need to collect and report to establish credible impact on the SDGs?
• Which SDG metrics are already well-served, and which need the most attention and investment?
• How can investors manage the gap in forward looking impact data? And how can they contextualise this data to compare relative impact? (e.g. by region)
• Have recent industry initiatives brought us closer to a harmonised approach to impact measurement and reporting and is that desirable?
• How have investors efforts to develop proprietary impact scorecards and assessment systems affected this drive for standardisation?
• Accurately measuring social and environmental outcomes and establishing causal links over long time horizons
• Standardising full lifecycle analysis of impact investments to enable relative comparisons
• What steps should impact investors take to address the risk of SDG-washing and greenwashing?

Moderator:
Christian Heller, CEO, Value Balancing Alliance

Panelists:
Christopher Greenwald, Head of Sustainable Investment Research and Stewardship, UBS Asset Management
Danielle Brassel, Responsible Investment Analyst, Zurich Insurance Group
Keimpe Keuning, Executive Director, LGT Capital Partners
Lisa Beauvilain, Managing Director, Head of Sustainability & ESG, IMPAX Asset Management

Discussion groups

Participate in discussion groups via group video calls. Ask questions, share views, connect with peers.

Each topic runs twice, once at 16.20 and again at 16.45.

• Discussion Group 1: Ratings data
• Discussion Group 2: Analytics and Alt Data
  
• Discussion Group 3: Corporate sustainability reporting - What stands in the way of consistent sustainability disclosure: lack of regulation or lack of incentive
• Discussion Group 4: Beyond public data - the value of corporate engagement
• Discussion Group 5: Impact reporting & measurement
• Discussion Group 6: Biodiversity

Closing remarks (ends 12.15 in NYC and 18.15 in Europe)

Welcome and opening remarks (8.15 in NYC and 14.15 in Europe)

Panel discussion: How will the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities impact ESG data and investment?

• Update on the work of the European Commission and Technical Expert Group to develop the EU Taxonomy
• What are the practical implications of the compromise reached by the EU for the treatment of gas and nuclear?
• Will the Taxonomy assist investors to analyse investment opportunities and with ESG reporting to clients?
• How ready are companies to produce relevant disclosures in line with Taxonomy criteria?
• Will ESG data providers fill the gap by adjusting their models to provide data that is calculated consistently with the Taxonomy criteria?
• What type of reporting will be expected from financial institutions during the transition period until more corporate disclosure becomes available?
• How will Brexit affect how the Taxonomy is applied to UK companies and investors?

Moderator:
Rick Walters, Director Infrastructure, GRESB

Panelists:
Barrie Ingman, Regulatory Advisor, FactSet
Marie Baumgarts, Head of Sustainability Regulatory Affairs and Sustainability Office, SEB Group
Nathan Fabian, Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Principles for Responsible Investment
Owen Thorne, Portfolio Manager – Monitoring & Responsible Investment, Merseyside Pension Fund

Panel discussion: The climate data challenge - Enabling a more effective evaluation of physical and transition risks for companies and investors

• Overcoming the lack of consistency and comparability in corporate disclosure of climate change related metrics and targets
• Can company disclosures be enhanced to include more forward-looking risk measurements using an industry-wide standardised methodology?
• Improving physical asset-level data, including information on individual company sensitivity and adaptive capacity
• Developing an integrated approach to the measurement of both physical and transition risks
• What steps can be taken to increase the level of corporate reporting in line with the TCFD recommendations?
• Developing effective climate scenario analyses – do regulators need to stipulate sector specific scenarios and assumptions to be used to make scenario analysis more robust?
• Are UK and other regulators inevitably moving towards mandating corporates and investors to report in line with the TCFD?

Moderator:

Michael Hurley, Staff Writer, Environmental Finance

Panelists:

Alessia Falsarone, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Investing, Senior Portfolio and Risk Strategist, Developed Markets Fixed Income, PineBridge Investments
Brett Hickey, Founder & CEO, Star Mountain Capital, LLC
Craig Davies, Associate Director, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change, EBRD
Emilie Mazzacurati, Founder & CEO, FourTwentySeven
Viola Lutz, Associate Director, Head of Investor Consulting, Climate Solution, ISS ESG

Panel Discussion: Mind the gap - Navigating the ESG data challenges in fixed income markets

• How are fixed income investors managing the lack of granular data for sovereigns, municipal bonds, emerging markets and securitised debt? How can data coverage and quality be improved?
• Can equities-related data be used to assess the ESG performance of corporate fixed income issuers? What are the issues and how can they be addressed?
• How can fixed income investors engage effectively with sovereigns? What information do they need?
• Understanding how relative materiality of ESG risks varies between fixed income and equity, and between fixed income products of different durations
• Are ratings providers effectively assessing the credit materiality of ESG issues whilst taking account of the specific characteristics of bond markets and issuers?
• Are commercially available ratings adequately capturing ESG risks in long-dated fixed income products?
• Overcoming the ESG data analysis challenges created by subsidiaries that are stand-alone issuers
• How will the push by credit rating agencies into ESG impact the quality and availability of data?

Moderator:
Lars Eibeholm, Head of Sustainable Banking, SEB Denmark

Panelists:
Hendrik Garz, Executive Director of Methodology and Portfolio Research, Sustainalytics
My-Linh Ngo, Head of ESG Investment Risk, BlueBay Asset Management
Peter Eerdmans, Head of Fixed Income, Ninety One
Tim Herzog, Senior Data Scientist, The World Bank

Panel Discussion: Turning data into investment advantage - How leading investors achieve a competitive-edge in their ESG analysis and investment decisions

• Developing in-house analytics tools and research capabilities to drill down into the raw ESG data sets and identify alpha opportunities
• Unbundling and analysing individual environmental, social and governance issues to enable a contextual evaluation of a company's ESG risks and their ability to mitigate these
• Establishing a clear understanding of financial materiality and non-materiality at a company and industry level
• Will external ratings become less relevant to active managers as they increasingly develop their own proprietary ESG scores?
• How and where are investors sourcing their own data to fill the gaps in commercially available ESG data?
• Does the data you use deliver value for clients and how do you conduct a meaningful cost/benefit analysis?

Moderator:
Scott Burns, Head of Data, Research and Individual Investor Products, Morningstar

Panelists:
Jason Mitchell, Co-Head of Responsible Investment, Man Group plc
Julie Moret, Global Head of ESG, Franklin Templeton Investments
Lennart Hermans, Head of Research, Osmosis Investment Management
Susana Peñarrubia Fraguas, Director- Head of ESG Integration – Active, DWS Investment GmbH

Discussion groups

Participate in live discussion groups via group video calls. Ask questions, share views, connect with peers. 

Each topic runs twice, once at 16.20 and again at 16.45.

• Discussion Group 7: EU Taxonomy
• Discussion Group 8: Climate risk evaluation
• Discussion Group 9: ESG data in the fixed income markets
• Discussion Group 10: ESG data as a competitive advantage – with the emergence of ESG data, how do financial data institutions evolve to support investors and remain competitive?
• Discussion Group 11: The power of ESG integration in alpha generation

Closing remarks (ends 12.15 in NYC and 18.15 in Europe)