Program

Subscribe to Updates on Future GreenBiz Events

View by Day:

Filter by Track:

Finance & ESG

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

10:45am to 11:30am

The Rising Currency of ‘S’ in ESG

Breakout

How is a focus on ‘S’ contributing to increased corporate value? What does it take to develop an ‘S’ strategy? What are the challenges and pitfalls? Join this session to hear from S&P Global Market Intelligence along with corporate leaders on the business transformation towards addressing social issues, and how this is a material issue for investors.

11:45am to 12:30pm

How Boards Can Manage Disruptive Risk

Breakout

The COVID pandemic and other disruptions of 2020 have reinforced the importance of clear-eyed risk assessment and sound decision-making based on science. This approach is particularly important when considering risks like climate change. This panel discussion will explore lessons learned by boards about how to address disruptive risk, the tools and resources available to them, and how it changes their approach to governance.

1:00pm to 1:45pm

Why Valuing Nature is Essential to Business Success

Breakout

Nature is the underpinning of our economy, but businesses still struggle to value and account for it in decisions. Building nature’s value into business decisions can lead to better outcomes for companies and the environment. Navigating this frontier has brought together economists, engineers, conservation scientists, and sustainability professionals from both organizations to advance the research, tools, and processes needed to integrate nature’s value into business operations. Hear from corporate and NGO sustainability leaders on how they have built the trust, skills and strategies to effectively integrate nature in business decisions at the enterprise-level. The session will also highlight a new toolkit for companies to use to operationalize valuing nature and discuss how this progress is motivating future action together to shift how industry values nature.

2:00pm to 2:30pm

Roundtable: ESG Governance in the Digital Transformation Era

Networking

How can organizations embark on their digital ESG governance journey to optimize performance and compliance while creating business value? With the mounting emphasis from investors and other stakeholders, more and more companies disclose their ESG risks, impacts, and practices through company sustainability reports. Join this roundtable to discuss why digital ESG governance is at the intersection of the integrated company reporting, shifting market standards, and investor outlook.

Join GreenBiz 21 roundtables to connect with like-minded participants for interactive virtual discussions around a big question or hot topic. Select your topic of interest to join a group discussion hosted by experts. Bring your own challenges, questions and ideas to these interactive discussions. Cameras on!

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

10:45am to 11:30am

Collaboration Towards A Global Set of Reporting Standards

Breakout

A single, coherent global set of reporting standards will ensure that all stakeholders can base decisions on consistent and comparable information while reducing reporting organizations' burden. Join this session to learn how collaboration can stimulate a global vision and process while acknowledging differing needs and practices across jurisdictions and stakeholder groups. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), providers of the world's most widely used sustainability reporting standards, will moderate this panel. Attendees will also hear from a policymaker at the forefront of developing a disclosure regime for the EU, CDP, an international non-profit that helps companies and cities disclose their environmental impact through its data collection platform, and seasoned reporting organization Dow, on its impacts and how best to engage stakeholders in dialogue.

From Risk to Vulnerability Management: What COVID-19 Has Taught Us About ESG Related Risks

Breakout

Traditional risk management approaches have failed to arm companies with the appropriate processes to address and strategically respond to high impact ESG-related events and risks. Despite recognition of the potentially catastrophic impact of a global pandemic, very few companies recognized infectious disease as a high-risk factor, and organizations were woefully underprepared to strategically and operationally respond to COVID-19. As organizations revive and revise their business models, they must implement more robust operational models and processes focused on resiliency and the management of business vulnerabilities. Organizations need to better plan and prepare for the impacts and challenges of addressing global disruptions and worldwide networks of interconnected ESG-related risks. Join this session for insights and tools to assess the vulnerability of your organization to ESG-related risk, extend traditional risk management activities to address dynamics and connectivity of risks, and build resiliency to critical and emergent ESG-risks.

11:45am to 12:30pm

Improving Supply Chain Resilience to Manage Climate Risks

Breakout

As climate risks become more and more disruptive, how can companies prepare for these disruptions and ensure resilience throughout their supply chain? How can companies formally incorporate climate change risk assessment into their supply chain risk management strategy? How are investors evaluating supply chain risks due to climate change? Join this session to explore why climate change risks must be addressed within a supply chain risk management program and the opportunities that companies have to create greater supply chain resilience.

Financing Circular Systems through Partnerships

Breakout

How can cross-industry collaborations scale CE investments while advancing a more sustainable and profitable future? Across sectors and industries, stakeholders stand to benefit from the multi-billion dollar circular opportunity. By keeping valuable materials — packaging, apparel, electronics and organics — in manufacturing supply chains and out of landfills, companies can reduce costs and increase access to the recycled materials necessary for translating their sustainability goals into tangible realities. This provides a strategic business advantage, while also creating measurable impact and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Impact at scale, however, will require circular systems beyond organizational silos; companies, sectors and industries must collaborate in pursuit of collective impact and opportunity. In this session, we’ll hear how investors and corporations alike are leveraging capital on hand to scale circular supply chains while showing strong financial returns.

Thursday, February 11th, 2021

9:05am to 9:25am

ESG: The View from Wall Street

Keynote

There is no question that ESG reporting is on the rise. Sustainability, at the intersection of environmental and social issues, is driving a tectonic shift in investing. Once seen as a strategy that sacrifices returns, investors are now using this lens to mitigate risk and ensure resilience. Hear from Martina L. Cheung, President of S&P Global Market Intelligence, on why financial analysis is incomplete if it ignores material ESG factors, and the implications, and opportunities, for sustainability professionals in this transformation.

10:45am to 11:30am

Modernizing Governance to Align Strategy and Purpose

Breakout

2019 saw many leading businesses take a renewed focus on the purpose of the corporation with the updated statement from the Business Roundtable and launch of the Principles for Purposeful Business. In 2020, the WEF focused on stakeholder capitalism and the COVID-19 pandemic has demanded a ‘great reset’ as business considers how it must evolve and respond to the societal challenges that the year has posed. What is the role of the board in understanding, managing, and responding to a crisis such as this? How can board members be better informed and equipped to ensure business resilience? How can the board ensure that it is taking account of all stakeholder views and using this to inform decision making and generate value for all stakeholders aligned with the purpose of the corporation, whilst still managing ESG-related risk and opportunity? This session will seek to answer some of these questions and provide attendees with an opportunity to hear from legal and corporate experts who will share their experiences on engaging with the board as they begin to reflect on how modernizing their approach to governance will support more successful and sustainable business.

Managing Human Capital for Health, Safety & Sustainability

Breakout

While the sustainability field has long recognized the importance of social issues over the course of its evolution as a discipline, the past year of COVID-19, alongside movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, has dramatically shifted the ESG conversation toward the “S” and “G.” This has included an increased focus on taking care of employee health, safety, and wellbeing as people return to and continue work in the new normal, in addition to caring for an extended universe of stakeholders (employees’ families, contractors, suppliers, and the communities in which we work). Yet in many regards this is nothing new – and what is considered “human capital management” in the field of sustainability has been the core work of safety and health professionals for over 100 years. This session will explore the dynamic evolution in how businesses, investors, and partners in the NGO community are re-defining and elevating this interdisciplinary topic – and its critical importance to the sustainability community in the future world of work.

11:45am to 12:30pm

Incentivizing Suppliers with Sustainable Finance and Banking

Breakout

The business impacts of COVID-19 are teaching us all some hard lessons: First, the value of resilience for businesses and their value chains, and the importance of improving sustainable practices. Second, the need to help companies optimize capital and cash flow as payment terms get extended due to the crisis. Managing these processes are essential for building a robust and resilient business and value chain. What if one program could address both? Join this session to hear about the next wave of innovative programs where organizations are partnering with banking and finance leaders to take action on both fronts at the scale needed for global impact. We’ll explore:

How combining global sustainability ratings with an innovative new breed of loan and financing programs can boost working capital and accelerate cash flow for suppliers, while providing incentives for suppliers to improve sustainability performance.
The latest developments with sustainability ratings that enable suppliers — including SMEs and non-listed companies — to benchmark performance, improve management systems to tackle challenges like diversity and anti-discrimination, working conditions, health and safety, environmental and climate impacts such as scope 3 GHG emissions, waste, and resource use.
Examples of sustainability-linked programs such as reverse factoring of invoices, supply chain finance, and commercial loans, that use these ratings as a mechanism for offering incentives in the form of reduced lending and discount rates, or investment due diligence at global scale.

2:00pm to 2:30pm

Roundtable: The Rise of Social Metrics: Is the S of ESG the New E?

Breakout

In the wake of a global pandemic, political and economic instability and calls for social justice, how are companies quantifying their impact in a way that is meaningful for employees and recruits, and useful for investors, raters and rankers? Join this roundtable for a discussion on how some companies are starting to turn the corner of intent vs. action and supporting that with new disclosures, programs and more. What does meaningful disclosure look like? Is including D&I metrics in your ESG report enough? And how do we balance data with narrative to show authenticity? This discussion will give you an opportunity to explore these questions and hear from your peers to help you determine what approach will be right for your company.

Join GreenBiz 21 roundtables to connect with like-minded participants for interactive virtual discussions around a big question or hot topic. Select your topic of interest to join a group discussion hosted by experts. Bring your own challenges, questions and ideas to these interactive discussions. Cameras on!