Sustainability Strategy

“Before, climate change was about doing the right thing. Now it’s just good business" - Ram Ramachander

What?

• Qualitative climate risk assessments based on interviews and desk-based research
• Quantitative climate risk assessments using GIS and associated technical tools
• Competitor benchmarking across ESG issues
• Nature risk and opportunity identification based on impact and dependency heatmapping across industries and geographies, using the Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure (ENCORE) tool
• ESG materiality assessments and horizon scanning
• Bespoke climate and nature target-setting in accordance with a firms ambitions, resources, and mandatory requirements
• Sustainability policy writing
• Transition planning including decarbonisation lever assessment
• Sustainable investment strategy for financial institutions
  • Developing negative screens and exclusion lists
  • Building portfolio impact metrics such as Implied Temperature Rise (ITR) and weighted average carbon intensity (WACI)
  • Using progressive metrics such as a avoided emissions and green revenue to identify key low carbon solution providers

 Why?

'Strategy', a term adorning corporate reports and fancy advertising banners the world over, can in reality mean many things to many different people. ‘Sustainability', in the hierarchy of corporate jargon, is increasingly giving strategy a run for its money. A victim of its own success, the term can be seen everywhere, and few stop to consider what it really means. Here, I use the term 'Sustainability Strategy' intentionally for its breadth, to encompass a range of services outlined above.

Building a successful strategy on sustainability topics such as climate and nature can look very different to different companies and different industries. The common goal, however, is to identify and mitigate emerging risks, and capture corresponding opportunities. This requires a progression from the simplest horizon scanning exercise and materiality assessment, through to the development of a high level policy that provides guardrails for decision making, and full blown transition plans complete with time-bound and costed decarbonisation initiatives. As the UK’s transition plan taskforce continues to develop, it is likely that all companies will have to produce some form of plan, on climate at least, in pursuit of the UK’s net zero goal, making it very important to get this journey started as soon as possible.

Financial institutions have a unique role to play in the transition, and a unique exposure to its risk given the way they are embedded in the wider economy through their investments. For them, designing a sustainability strategy is about far more than just operational improvements, but totally re-imagining the products they sell and how they communicate them. This is a hugely exciting process and one that can lead to significant value generation in both the short and long term.

Credentials

While at Oxford, I supported Rothschild and Co. on developing an ESG stakeholder materiality matrix.

I provided an ‘in-flight review’ of a leading grocery manufacturer’s food waste processes, including an informal in-person audit, presentation and report of the strategy’s strengths and weaknesses.

I am particularly experienced in designing low-carbon investment strategies for financial institutions. For example:

• I was the leading analyst in a green fintech firm, iClima Earth, designing financial indexes comprised of climate solutions providers. We were pioneers in our use of the ‘avoided emissions’ concept which helped us operationalise our foundational vision of green finance as actively powering the transition rather than simply ‘doing less harm’.
• Off the back of my work at iClima, I became KPMG UK’s subject matter expert on the topic of avoided emissions (see thought leadership here), as well as a key part of the team working with institutions in sustainable finance more broadly.
• I helped to develop a sustainable allocation methodology for a major UK asset manager, analying a range of global taxonomies and sustainable investment frameworks.

I worked with a leading global bank to undertake a pilot nature heatmapping assessment, and supported a global food and beverage provider in developing a nature scenario analysis tool.

I conducted a review of a global corporate’s ESG targets and KPIs, culminating in final presentation and report.

I was part of a project looking to work with major UK sporting institutions and therefore understand the regulatory landscape, stakeholder pressures, and resource limitations within which they operate.

As part of my reporting work, particularly while writing TCFD reports, I became very familiar with the process of analysing and evaluating risks, opportunities, and emerging strategies to deal with these.

All photos are my own