ITFA Webinar – ‘Debunking ESG and climate reporting myths – what you have to know and what you don’t’

This webinar, which is open to ITFA members only, follows on from the work that ITFA did last year on sustainability reporting standards. That work identified both a regulatory paradox and a confusion in the way banks were being asked to report on their sustainability performance. Multiple standards and multiple frameworks globally make it hard to identify exactly where reporting priorities should be and how we should go about creating the appropriate measurements in a clear, consistent and comparable way.

Webinar details

Date: 14 March 2024
Time: 12:00 PM UK / 13:00 CET
Platform: Zoom (joining details will be sent by email to all those registered, a few days prior to the webinar)

To start the process of developing an audit standard that is as consistent and comparable as financial audits are, Rebecca Harding and Kevin Bourne will look at the mass of standards and filter out the key things that you need to know if you are working on simplifying your ESG reporting processes. They will differentiate between ESG reporting and climate reporting and look at the complexities of reporting against each. Taking climate as an tangible starting point, they will go on to suggest frameworks for the development of a common and practical measurement framework that will form the basis of ITFA’s work during 2024.

Mr. Kevin Bourne, Head of Markets at Vyzrd

Kevin is the Head of Markets at Vyzrd, an Australian based AI enabled analytics and climate valuation company that provides industry leading solutions for corporates and institutions. 
 
Kevin has more than 35 years’ experience in financial markets with more than 20 of these including sustainable finance & climate risk. He has focused on how climate change & ESG increasingly impacts the cost of capital as well as the impairment to asset valuations that will be driven by the development of new regulatory & risk factors. 
 
Before joining the VYZRD team, Kevin was Head of S&P Global Sustainable One Investment Research. In this role, he was responsible for setting the firms sustainable finance research agenda across markets and into investors, in support of S&P Global’s climate & ESG product objectives.  
 
Prior to S&P, Kevin was Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Finance at IHS Markit where he launched their groundbreaking, forward looking, Sovereign ESG data platform. This was the first in the industry to include multi variate climate scenarios in the quantitative assessment of short-term country risk. IHS Markit merged with S&P in early 2022. 
 
Starting in 2011, he has also built a green transition market data company, which modelled the changes in climate aligned industrial output for public companies. This resulted in him partnering with & subsequently joining FTSE Russell who acquired his business in 2018 having launched multiple indexes derived from his work.  As part of this partnership, he was appointed Global Head of Sustainable Investment at FTSE Russell and a FTSE Exco member.
 
His journey into sustainable finance was preceded by 25 years in equity trading, latterly as Managing Director & Global Head of Electronic & Portfolio Trading at HSBC. 
 
Kevin also provides pro bono support to:
 

• ECO Capacity Exchange a UK start-up which looks to recycle unused industrial capacity
• The All Party Parliamentary Group [APPG] on Climate Security 
• The WCRP [World Climate Research Program] Extreme Weather Working Group. 
• OS Climate, a Linux/Financial Markets funded open-source climate risk engine.
• City of London Corporation/People Bank of China Green Renminbi Working Group.
• pTools, a Dublin based Identity Integrity company focusing on financial markets & ESG 
• CAF – The UK based Charities Aid Foundation, where he advises the Board, CEO & Exco on climate risk & ESG.

We look forward to welcoming you during this session.

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The Sustainability Audit Council Working Group

As recently announced on social media, we are taking a proactive step towards fostering sustainability in global finance and working towards establishing our Sustainable Audit Council (SAC). As mentioned above we have identified a critical gap in regulatory reporting standards for ESG practices. This gap not only hinders consistency and comparability but also poses risks to inclusive economic growth. This has created a market failure in the form of an overly cautious approach to ESG lending, under-reporting of potentially qualifying finance, a potential for a widening trade finance gap for SMEs with the consequent exclusion of emerging markets. The challenge now is to create that consistency and comparability so that we move towards, quite literally, more sustainable trade……hence the launch of the SAC.

We are therefore reaching out to our members for assistance.
 

How can ITFA members contribute?
 

Click here https://itfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Sustainable-Audit-Council.pdf or reach out to Lorna Pillow and Johanna H.K.M. Wissing on info@itfa.org for further details and to learn more about the available partnership opportunities.  Time is running out and in order to enable us to embark on this project and secure the experts and expertise that is needed, all funding needs to be secured by latest Mid-March.

Therefore let us not miss this brief window of opportunity to avoid that #esg reporting becoming a box-tick KYC 2.0. This project is only viable with the support of our members and we would be very disappointed if we would have to shelve the project due to lack of funding.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and engage in meaningful discussions and actions on ESG topics. We look forward to your participation and contribution.