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Lindsey Hall: I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of thought leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a senior writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where we explore environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping investor activity and company strategy.

So Esther, last week, we had 2 big events in my house. One was my birthday and the other was the GreenFin conference.

Esther Whieldon: Oh. Happy birthday.

Lindsey Hall: Thank you. But today's episode is going to focus on that second part because I got to attend the GreenFin event and had a lot of great conversations on the ground and in the days following.

So today, we're going to hear some of the themes that emerged during GreenFin. We'll be talking with Joel Makower, who is Chairman and Co-Founder of GreenBiz Group, the media and events company that hosted the event. And we'll also speak with Sarah Chapman, who is Global Chief Sustainability Officer at Manulife, about the evolution of net zero standards, ESG data and the just transition. And we'll be hearing from Evan Harvey, the Global Head of Sustainability at Nasdaq, about the role of regulation and driving more sustainable business and ESG transparency.

Esther Whieldon: Now throughout the podcast, you'll hear us use a couple of different acronyms to refer to some different sustainability standard setters. For example, ISSB is the International Sustainability Standards Board, GRI is the Global Reporting Initiative and SASB is the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board.

Lindsey Hall: That's right. But as you'll hear in my interview with Evan, he says that getting to competence in ESG reporting is achievable despite this alphabet soup. Okay. Now let's start with my interview with Joel from GreenBiz Group. I asked him for a quick overview of the conference for listeners who aren't familiar. And for transparency, I should note that S&P Global Sustainable1 was a sponsor of GreenFin. Okay. Here's Joel.

Joel Makower: GreenFin is our brand for the coming together and informing an engaging a community that includes big institutional investors, corporate reporters and their finance teams, large financial institutions of the world, the ratings and rankings organizations like S&P and then everybody else who comes to that party where everybody wants to see what the conversation is about. And we really try to build communities across various silos and sectors.

And so in this case, what is that conversation about ESG that needs to be shared among investors and companies and ratings and rankings organizations? For example, where is this going? How should we be thinking about it? And of course, all this in the context of so many things going on in the world, and then particularly in the U.S. policy arena, but also globally.

When we do these events, we do our best to get the ecosystem in the room, as we call it. And this was an invitation-only event, so you could request an invitation. But we wanted to keep the mix -- get the right mix in the room. We wanted to limit, with all due respect to my consultant friends, the number of service providers in the room. There were some, but not that many. And we really wanted to have that great mix to have this candid and informed conversation that is important to be having right now.

Lindsey Hall: And so when you bring all these stakeholders in this ecosystem together, like you just described, what kind of conversations were you hearing? What were some of your -- I mean, I had trouble choosing which sessions to go to, honestly, because there were so many interesting ones. But would love to get your perspective. What were you hearing?

Joel Makower: Certainly a lot on the future of ESG scores and how do we get that clear articulation of risk and impact, and at what point does this just sort of fold into other things? So as somebody put it: One day, ESG will just be called investing.

There was a lot on economic and racial justice and the so-called just transition. The emphasis is that this is not a moment, but a movement that needs to be endemic and systemic, as we look at the money flows and corporate commitments and government programs around the world. So there was quite a bit on that.

The importance of data. Mark Carney spoke to us about the need for real, solid, science-based data. And then we had a presentation from the tech firm Planet, which has hundreds of satellites that are scouring the earth and photographing it daily, and how they're able to come up with data that will be relevant to ESG issues such as pinpointing, down to the facility level, where methane is coming from.

There is just so many aspects of this thing called ESG that we're all just getting our hands around. And that was part of the goal here, is to just sort of cover some of the issues.

Lindsey Hall: So Esther, as we just heard from Joel, there were lots of different kinds of corporates in attendance at this event and a lot of different topics being discussed. And data was one that came up again and again. One of the attendees I interviewed with Sarah Chapman from Manulife, which is a global life and health insurance company and asset manager. Here's Sarah.

Sarah Chapman: My role within the organization is really overseeing all things ESG from a strategy, reporting and disclosure perspective and ultimately overseeing our global climate action plan as well as our community investment portfolios.

Lindsey Hall: Fantastic. And I was lucky enough to be at the GreenFin conference earlier this week in New York, where you were one of the speakers. I'm wondering, just for starters, can you tell our listeners about some of the key takeaways you heard from that 2-day event? Who did you talk to? What were some of the panels or comments that stood out to you?

Sarah Chapman: Sure. So it was so great to be in person. I think for many of us, this was our sort of post-COVID in-person opportunity to really catch up on how much has changed over the last 2 years. And I'll maybe reflect on a few key takeaways that I had.

I think we're in a really interesting moment in the sort of broad ESG space. Ultimately, we're starting to see a lot of convergence. We're seeing convergence in methodologies, of how we account for a variety of different metrics like our greenhouse gas emissions. We're starting to see convergence in reporting standards. So we're starting to see things come together.

At the same time, there is a very real tension in terms of the conversations. We're seeing increasing, obviously, regulatory scrutiny and pressure on disclosures at a time where we also have ambitions to make as much progress as possible. And so one of the key takeaways in that tension was really around not letting perfect be the enemy of good. But at the same time, we're seeing increasing scrutiny and pressure on exactly that. So that certainly was one.

Another interesting takeaway was really the power of engagement continues to come through, particularly for financial institutions, in terms of a realistic mechanism around how we can drive the transition to a net zero economy. So that's another takeaway.

And a lot of discussion around the just transition. So when we think about the just transition, we're talking about greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned. And as we think about organization, we just cannot make decisions in the absence of considerations of these potential implications. So a lot of discussion around the just transition.

Lindsey Hall: Yes. We talk about a lot, on this podcast, the interplay between the E and the S and the overlap between environmental and social issues. So it was definitely nice to see a lot of that focus during the conference.

Now you mentioned the importance of engagement for financial institutions. I wonder if you can say a little bit more about that. What does engagement look like in your role, or for Manulife more broadly?

Sarah Chapman: Yes. So at Manulife, we set out a global climate action plan in May of last year that covers the way that we are addressing climate change and the way that we are advancing the transition to a net zero economy through our operations, our investments and our products and services. And I would say engagement plays a really important role under that category of both our investments and our products and services, and I'll explain what I mean.

Within our investments, we have set an ambition and a commitment to be net zero by 2050. What's far more important than that, frankly, is shorter-term targets, which again, with a lot of the discussion at the conference around the setting of those targets.

And when we think about engagement, and we think about the ways that financial institutions are going to achieve their short-term and long-term targets with respect to reducing emissions, we at Manulife really believe that we need to be a participant in the real economy. So putting our capital to work to help our investee companies and projects that are most in need of transitioning.

So for Manulife, within our climate action plan and in terms of setting those shorter-term targets, we're starting with our most carbon-intensive sectors, where we really think the biggest opportunities are. And again, taking an engagement approach, working with those companies and understanding how we can put that capital to work to drive the transition.

Lindsey Hall: How do you expect this conversation around net zero to evolve over the next year or 2?

Sarah Chapman: Yes. So I think that, in the last few years, we've -- there's been a lot of discussion around if and what companies should be committing to. And I think we've obviously seen a massive influx and a number of companies committing to net zero and shorter-term, nearer-term targets.

You then quickly shift to, okay, now beyond sort of how are we going to do that, what is the mechanism within the organization to track progress, engage portfolio managers, engage teams that are on the ground that are really going to make this meaningful change? And it's sort of the shift between, should we engage? And then what we've seen as to the -- what are we going to commit to? And now we're in this moment of, okay, how are we going to make real, demonstrated progress?

And so when we think about the mechanisms within the organization to be tracking something, like progress against a net zero goal on financed emissions, it really comes down to the people that are managing the investments. And we're starting to see some companies setting internal prices on carbon, internal carbon budgets. Again, because some of the data is challenging, I think that's going to be one area in terms of the how we get there that becomes critical to the conversation in the next few years.

Lindsey Hall: And we heard Sarah talk about the convergence happening around data and standards. You also heard her refer to what she described as "very real tension." And I heard this idea of tension in the ESG space come out throughout the conference.

Someone on Sarah's panel at the event talked about the level of anxiety to hear from clients when it comes to Scope 3 emissions. As a reminder for our listeners, those are the emissions that occur up and down a company's supply chain and when customers use the company's products. And I asked Sarah about the particular challenges that come with measuring Scope 3 emissions.

Sarah Chapman: So data, data, data. I think what certainly continues to be the theme on the challenges around Scope 3, particularly Scope 3 Category 15 financed emissions, which for most financial institutions, is the most material Scope 3 emissions category that we're talking about.

And ultimately, to put it simply, our Scope 3 financed emissions come from -- the data for that comes from our investee companies disclosing their own emissions. And so as we are setting targets and baselines with respect to net zero and near-term targets, we need to understand, from our investee companies and projects, what those emissions are.

And so that's really the tension, and I think where things like the SEC proposals are coming through, where increasing disclosure, particularly of Scope 1 and 2, will actually help financial institutions be able to address their Scope 3 Category 15 financed emissions. And right now, the data is largely based on estimations, particularly outside of the public portfolios. And we just -- there's certainly, I would say, a broad industry push to help refine the data in that space.

Lindsey Hall: There was definitely a lot of talk during the conference that I heard about the SEC's climate disclosure proposal as well as its newly proposed fund-naming rules. Love to get your thoughts. And also, what did you hear at the conference or in conversations on the sidelines?

Sarah Chapman: Yes. So I think that -- I mean, obviously, this is a monumental shift and I would say sort of maturation of a space that has been growing in momentum over the last few years. And again, it comes back to that tension. So on the one side of things, we'd heard a lot about not letting perfect be the enemy of good, and we need to make progress. And progress based on estimations is okay.

At the same time, with the increasing regulatory scrutiny and pressure on disclosures, I think that there is some hesitation there without really knowing what the future is going to look like in terms of those requirements. There is a healthy amount of tension, but I think ultimately in the right direction. We need increasing disclosures in order for all of us to make progress where we need.

And so I think that there is hesitation based on uncertainty, but an overall support, that everything is moving in the right direction.

Lindsey Hall: So Sarah, this is a bit of a basic question, but I think one that's important for our audience. We obviously talk a lot about ESG on this podcast. But what should our audience know specifically about the sustainability issues that are impacting the insurance sector, where Manulife operates?

Sarah Chapman: Sure. So as we think about the intersection of insurance and climate change, as Manulife is a life and health insurance company, we are right now conducting extensive research and analysis on the impacts of climate change on health. So when you think about physical climate change and the impacts, you think about things like vector-borne diseases and extreme weather events and increased temperatures and the effect that, that has on morbidity and mortality.

And to be -- to take it a step further, we think about things like air pollution as it relates to asthma. And so we are doing a lot of extensive research and analysis on the impacts of climate change on those things, like those vector-borne diseases and increased temperatures on mortality and morbidity, to inform decisions related to our life insurance underwriting assumptions.

And to be super -- to give you an example, nearly 100 million people in China alone suffer from chronic pulmonary disease caused primarily from air pollution as a result of climate change. And so the intersection and the impact of climate on health is real, and we are really starting to understand a lot more about that in the last few years.

Lindsey Hall: Can you talk about the global or the geographic focus for Manulife? Like how are -- you just gave an example of China. But how -- what's the geographic breakdown of your business?

Sarah Chapman: Yes. So Manulife operates globally in a number of different jurisdictions. Canada, obviously, based and headquartered. We have a significant presence in the U.S. as well as across Asia, in multiple markets in Asia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, just to mention a few. All of which are experiencing different impacts of climate change.

Lindsey Hall: So if I'm trying to wrap up sort of some of the key themes that I'm hearing from you, I think what I'm hearing is, on the one hand, you said data, data, data. We need more of it to understand ESG risks and opportunities. But at the same time, you said don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Data isn't perfect yet, but we need to keep moving forward. And then the third thing I think I'm hearing is, how do we engage across the stakeholder chain to create real, measurable progress?

Am I getting that right? Or how would you sum up the sort of key points of this conversation and also the key takeaways from GreenFin?

Sarah Chapman: Absolutely. And I think just the only other thing I would add is just the importance of this just transition. So making decisions and engaging in the context of considering the implications of the targets that we have and how we achieve those, and making sure that financial institutions are participants in the real economy; and considering both, I would say, the environmental and the social elements of climate change and the implications thereof.

Lindsey Hall: So that's a really important point. And a lot of our listeners work in different parts of the sustainability business in different financial institutions. What would be kind of your #1 piece of advice for them if they are looking to consider the just transition? To keep both the E and the S in mind as they're making decisions?

Sarah Chapman: My advice is to make sure that we are looking at this through a lens of both risk mitigation and value creation. So said another way, really making sure that we are looking at this through where our businesses have the most meaningful and credible ways to have an impact. So we think about this concept of shared value. How do we actually create economic opportunity through addressing environmental and social challenges? And I think that's really the way to scale progress in this space, is when it is embedded in business strategy and, frankly, business opportunity.

Lindsey Hall: So again, a lot of talk about the direction of travel for ESG data. And as you'll hear, this was a central theme in my next interview as well. Let's dive in.

Evan Harvey: My name is Evan Harvey. I am the Global Head of Sustainability for Nasdaq, commonly thought of as the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. And in that role, I am responsible for what we do inside of the corporate house on ESG and sustainability, and also working externally with our clients and customers and listed companies and other stakeholders around the idea of sustainability and how it plays out in the capital markets.

Lindsey Hall: Now I had the pleasure of meeting you, sitting down with you at the GreenFin Conference in New York on June 28, and I'd love to hear your takeaways from that event. What were the conversations you were having? What stuck out to you in the panels that you attended?

Evan Harvey: Well, I have to provide a caveat and say that Nasdaq was a sponsor.

A few themes definitely stood out because of where we are in time. The SEC climate reporting proposal has generated a lot of attention in the space. And there's a lot of opinions flying around about what is the rule and the role of the regulator in terms of compelling better climate performance from companies. But also, what is the use of regulatory intervention generally in terms of trying to drive more sustainable business and trying to drive more ESG transparency and trying to drive capital into more sustainable directions? That was absolutely a theme that was overlaid almost everywhere I went over the last few days.

And I heard a lot of attention paid to stakeholder engagement and human capital. I heard a lot of attention paid to the sort of -- I went to a session even about ESG talent itself and the burgeoning job market for people that have the skill set in corporates, in investment firms, on investment desks, which was interesting. As we're scaling up the capital investment needed to attack some of these problems, we also need to scale up the teams that are doing the work. And so that was an interesting theme.

And then I think that something that is common at a sustainability or an ESG conference and definitely came out again this time was the idea of the alphabet soup, the idea of the conflicting and overlapping rankers and raters and frameworks and how that all fits together. And will efforts like the ISSB and other sort of projects make that world easier to navigate? Or does it just add more complexity?

Lindsey Hall: I heard a lot of discussion of that alphabet soup as well. I also, for the first time, started hearing more pushback on the idea that it's so hard to wrap your head around all these acronyms. Maybe a little bit of frustration with the narrative that there are so many acronyms that it's impossible to know what to do. And I heard some people saying it's actually not that difficult. Yes, it's a lot to wrap your head around, but also that shouldn't be stopping progress. I wonder if you heard any similar feedback.

Evan Harvey: I might have been one of those voices because that's an opinion that I hold. I don't think it's particularly difficult. I don't think it's impossible. If getting your head around a couple of reporting frameworks in the ESG or sustainability space is the most complex thing you have to manage for your business, I mean, that would sort of be a nice problem to have.

So I think that you -- companies and reporters can get to competence pretty quickly. There aren't dozens and dozens of reputable frameworks out there, we're talking about a handful. They're not that hard to understand.

I think that there's 2 ways to approach ESG and sustainability in terms of the data and the transparency as a reporter, as a company. One would be we want these management signals in-house. They are indicators of performance that are new that we haven't had before that are going to help us run this business in a more efficient way, help us mitigate risk, help us maximize opportunity. Those are real pluses just inside the house.

And then outside the house, how do we tell our story? How do we engage with external stakeholders? How do we improve our rankings and ratings from ESG rankers and raters? How do we sort of improve the intangible valuation of our brand by having this be part of our ethos?

And I think that those 2 things are not the same and they're often conflated. And when I work with listed companies, when I work with companies of all kinds that are contemplating getting into ESG reporting, I always counsel them to start with the internal part first: Find good data, use decision-making criteria that are within the walls of the company to make decisions within the company and then expose those or publish those in ways that make sense for your company.

So nobody has to start doing the 300-plus metrics in the GRI standards. Nobody has to start by necessarily doing the relatively small number of metrics that are in the SASB protocol. You have to do what's right for your company, and you have to do what's right for -- in terms of pleasing and engaging your stakeholders.

Lindsey Hall: You have to start somewhere, and starting small isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Evan Harvey: No, it's a good thing. Start small, start with good, dependable data, small. And work on leveraging the value of that data inside the company before you start to leverage the value outside the company.

Lindsey Hall: One of the things we were talking about at our roundtable lunch is the role of exchanges in driving sustainability. You were leading that discussion. Can you tell our listeners, after that robust discussion, what would you say? What is the role of exchanges in driving sustainability goals?

Evan Harvey: I think it depends on who you ask to some extent. Now there's been a fair amount of uniformity in the industry over the last 10 years because there are 2 working groups: 1 at our trade association, the World Federation of Exchanges; and 1 at the United Nations called the Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative, that have collectively brought into the power of stock exchanges to drive sustainable finance as an engine, as a multiplier.

And I think that you have a lot of stock exchanges, there are only about 100 in the world, that sort of have come to participate in this tidal wave of action because of those 2 working groups. So my answer might have been much different 10 or 15 years ago outside of a small number of exchanges that were doing extraordinary things. But now just about every exchange is doing something.

I think you can summarize it by saying that all the things that exchanges do in the product and service set and then the sort of listings venue set, we have -- most of us have adopted a sustainability approach to some of that.

Lindsey Hall: And you made the point at the conference that, given its role as an exchange, Nasdaq is privy to a lot of data points, just there's a lot of data flowing through these transactions. And I wonder, if we look ahead a year or 2, what role do you see exchanges like Nasdaq playing in plugging ESG data gaps?

Evan Harvey: Well, the data record has to get better in ESG. That was another theme that was very common at the conference, and something that I believe. We have ideas, pretty good ideas, about the signals in the environmental space that are performance-based and give real indications of value, long-term value. We have a lesser -- a less robust understanding of how the social signals work, the S part of ESG, but people are working on it and trying to figure out what KPIs can actually be measured in that space.

But the data that's been pulled into the system so far is very haphazard. It's often unstructured. It's often not calculated the same way by the same company in the same time frame. So there's a huge normalization effort that has to happen on the data that is there.

And then I think that there's a huge portion of the data that's not there, too. There are still outlier blanks in the record from a number of companies, from a number of sectors, across a number of metrics that are either too nascent or haven't been invented yet. So I think of the next 2 years as a data standardization and normalization era, and I think that's going to drive a lot of the future.

Lindsey Hall: On that topic of the S in ESG, the social issues that you just mentioned. In August 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a proposal by Nasdaq to require listed companies to have at least one director who identifies as women; and another who is Black, Hispanic, Native American, LGBTQ+ or part of another underrepresented community; or explain why they don't have this level of diversity, so comply or explain.

And I just wanted to follow up on that. It's been nearly a year. And I wanted to ask along these same lines. What is the role of exchanges in driving diversity, equity and inclusion, or DE&I, specifically?

Evan Harvey: Well, you have stumbled upon the one part of exchange operation that we didn't talk too much about in terms of driving ESG compliance or performance, which was --would be rule-making. Very few exchanges do explicit rule-making around ESG. The rule that we put out around board diversity was very sort of groundbreaking for an exchange of our size and in a competitive venue. We're really proud of it.

We got a fair amount of positive mentions and press. And then the SEC, after approving the rule, is being challenged in court by a number of states who don't believe that the SEC has the right to regulate such things. So it's a mixed bag in terms of the net impact for something like gender diversity or racial diversity on boards, but it's absolutely a step hopefully in the right direction.

And we have seen other exchanges do similar things. We have seen other exchanges mandate certain performance characteristics before they can have access to the market. It's still a rare occurrence, and we still generally rely on the market regulator to control those kinds of decisions. But I think that Nasdaq, to its credit, just thought that we could be of use and drive some better transparency and better performance in board rooms which were inadequate in terms of their diversity and their structure. And that was the genesis of that.

Lindsey Hall: Well, Evan, I know your time is short. But is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience? Other questions that I haven't asked that you think are important to understand as takeaways from this event? Or more broadly, as the listeners are trying to understand the sustainability environment.

Evan Harvey: Well, I will say that we're in an interesting point in the evolution of this dynamic, sustainability in ESG in the world and in finance in particular. We're about 5 to 10 years in, and depending on how you measure, there's a certain amount of maturity in the metrics. There's a certain amount of buy-in. There's fewer and fewer voices out there saying that there is no value to these metrics, that they should not be part of an investor's decision, for example. But I think that we're now seeing the sort of politicization of ESG. And the idea that it is somehow embedded in an idea of big government or overreach or overregulation.

And coupled with that, we have thoughts of greenwashing and some skepticism in the market, some of it justified, about the labels that we use and the words that we use to sell products while people are looking for ESG solutions, and I would presume not being super-diligent about digging into what's under the label.

So I think we're at this really interesting time. There's a tension between the progress, the sort of inevitable progress of this movement and these counterforces that are at play in the world. And I would just ask people to pay attention because it's interesting how it's going to resolve itself.

I have no doubt that we need the movement to continue, that there are existential economic, social, political and planetary issues that don't just fix themselves. And I also think they don't fix themselves without the capital markets, without the power of economics and business. It's the only global network that has the scale and the power to really address it. So I'm hoping that the counterforces that I talked about before don't prevail.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. I'm talking with Curtis Ravenel later this afternoon. Similar, ask him his takeaways from the conference. Do you have any questions for him? Anything you think I should ask?

Evan Harvey: Curtis is a legend. I mean, there's no doubt about that. He has been formative in a lot of framework creation and he created a record at Bloomberg that was unparalleled.

The question I would ask for him is, will there be one standard someday? Will there be a sort of generally accepted -- generally accepted accounting principles for ESG? Will there be a series of KPIs or metrics that the world agrees on?

Or as I think, and as a lot of people think, is it always going to be sort of a balance between a regulatory required -- regulatorily required filing and a voluntary publication? As the kinds of data you put in a sustainability report versus the kind of data you put into an SEC filing. I'd be curious about his opinion on that, if he sees the same sort of bifurcation in the reporting space.

Esther Whieldon: So we heard a lot of talk in today's episode about ESG data. For example, Evan sees the next 2 years as a period of data standardization and normalization.

Lindsey Hall: Yes. And in case you're wondering, I did pose Evan's question to Curtis Ravenel, who's our guest on next week's episode of this podcast. Curtis is Senior Adviser for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, and he's also a member of the Secretariat for the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, or TCFD. Please tune in next week to hear what he has to say.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider. And a special thanks to our producer, Kyle Cangelosi. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast and sign up for our weekly newsletter, ESG Insider. See you next time.

 

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