The Sustainable Investment Dilemma - Amy Clarke, Troy Mortimer & JP Dallmann

Episode 41,   Sep 30, 2020, 11:00 AM

On today’s episode we are doing something different: we are sharing with you a session that I called “The Sustainable Investment Dilemma”, a conversation I hosted as part of The CogXtra weekly event series, covering in this opportunity the subject of “Sustainable Business – How Industry is addressing the Climate Crisis”. In our case, the financial industry.

As my co-panellist I brought together two guests:
Amy Clarke, who is Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer of Tribe Impact Capital, and 
Troy Mortimer, who is Responsible Investment and ESG Advisor at ILA & Partners. 
If you did not know them already, I highly recommend that you also listen to the individuals episodes we recorded previously. You can also read her Bios at the end of these notes. 

As part of the event I also shared a short Video introduction to the recently launched film “Our Planet: Too Big To Fail”, which is a 42-minute film that explores the risks of inaction, the impact of investing-as-usual, and the role the finance sector can play powering a sustainable future. I wanted to bring this to your attention to ask you to watch it and share it, so we can all take proactive actions! You can watch the video on ILA & Partners’ website - Media section: http://bit.ly/ILAmediaV

I also thought this is relevant to set the tone ahead of our conversation, but most importantly, I wanted to shine the light on one of the best tools we have to create awareness and understand how interconnected the industry is to every part of society and the world at large.

Please note that we had a couple of technical challenges that were all resolved during the first few minutes, but I wanted to make sure you had access to this valuable content. Enjoy ! 

Highlights:
  • “If we can create a much healthier relationship with our wealth, and the purpose of our wealth, then actually we should be able to fix, repair, increase resilience, and ultimately regenerate the relationships with each other and with nature.” Amy Clarke
  • 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman's seminal essay that was penned and then printed in the New York Times Magazine
  • “there is a real sense that the values and belief systems upon which we have built this global finance system aren't right, they're not fit, they're not robust.”
  • There is the rise of the BCorp movement and the use of BLab tools during the lockdown has risen exponentially.
  • “Impact investing is about helping wealth holders reconnect with the purpose of their wealth. The word wealth comes from two old English 13th century old English words, meaning well being, we've lost the well being and wealth along the way. And it's become singularly focused on financial performance.” Amy Clarke
  • “I see this as a behavioral inertia challenge. Financial institutions are comprised of individuals, we need to look at how we incentivise these individuals, how we are rewarding them and how we associate value with their actions.” Troy Mortimer
  • We can transition not all but a lot of companies through to becoming a force for good.
  • “We need a just transition, quickly and effectively where finance, regulation and policy play a role. We need a carrot and a stick.” Troy Mortimer
  • How do we move beyond (Only) preaching to the converted?
  • The later we leave it, the steeper the transition is going to be - Mark Carney
  • The more we pushback regulation deadlines, the more uncertainty it creates. Ultimately, its better to takes the operational learnings in Covid and behaviour change and apply it to compliance and regulation.
  • Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, a different style of leadership. Moving away into a more human style of leadership.
  • We need to use AI to help change behaviours in the right direction.
  • Passive ESG funds should be able to demonstrate intent.
  • Its important to populate the empirical evidence and convince the skeptics of the economic data with the language that they know.
  • “We have outperformed the benchmarks. There is more than enough data to show that these type of investments are resilient on up and down cycles, which is why we are seeing huge flows into ESG.” Amy Clarke
  • “As a bellwether for market sentiment, its phenomenal, because we can now see everybody is looking for safe harbours and safe harbours of businesses with these kind of resilience built in.”
  • “Investors should be thinking - Well, I understand that there is some volatility right now, but in the mean time, I’m investing for something larger. What you wil see is that over the long-term, it starts to come back in financial returns.” Troy Mortimer
  • As Tim Geithner said, at least in relation to the US financial crisis and how they had resources large enough to do anything about that crisis , but I think financial resources will not be enough in relation to the Sustainability challenge we face. And we will not have time to react and fix things. But we must be proactive. JP Dallmann

Timestamps:
[2:56] Who is Amy Clarke
[03:38] Who is Troy Mortimer
[7:30] Can the finance sector be a force for good? What is required for this to happen?
[10:40] Behavioural inertia and rethinking what we value
[13:10]  Orsted energy from black energy to post IPO as a predominantly green energy company 
[16:50] Preaching to the converted and reporting Positive/Negative Impact 
[21:40] The complexity of the Sustainable Energy supply chain
[25:30] Investing in oil & gas and clean energy 
[30:00] Using data and AI to create behaviour change 
[34:00] The mistrust created by media and digital
[37:00] Passive ESG funds vs Active investing
[44:20] Make Money and Global tax infrastructure
[46:00] We need to be proactive - Financial resources are not enough

Useful links:
Amy Clarke on Linkedin
Amy Clarke on Impact Leaders
Troy Mortimer on Linkedin
Troy Mortimer on Impact Leaders
Saker Nusseibeh CBE of Federated Hermes on Linkedin
Saker Nusseibeh on Impact Leaders
Outrageous Optimism Podcast by Cristina Figueres https://globaloptimism.com/podcasts/
Bernard Looney, CEO of BP - podcast episode
Solitaire Townsend, Cofounder of Futerra on Sex, Status and Sustainability - podcast
Our planet video series - https://www.ourplanet.com/en/
OUR PLANET: TOO BIG TO FAIL - https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/our-planet-too-big-to-fail
Harvard Business School Impact-Weighted Accounts
Big Four ESG reporting framework standards. Deloitte + Ernst & Young  + KPMG + PwC
rethinking capital on LinkedIn


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More about the guests - Bios:

Amy Clarke
Amy Clarke is Co-Founder & Chief Impact Officer of Tribe Impact Capital ("Tribe"), an award-winning wealth management firm and B Corps dedicated in its entirety to advising and managing private and institutional wealth for impact. 

Tribe is the first of its kind in the UK, and works with like-minded clients impassioned to use their wealth to manifest the positive social, environmental and economic changes in the world they wish to see in line with their own financial needs. They do this by adopting the Paris Climate Accord and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) as their impact 'North Stars'. They are on a journey to be Net Zero across Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2025 having declared a Climate Emergency in their business in September 2019.

Amy sits on the board of B Lab UK & Big Issue Invest. She is also an Advisor to the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network and sits on the Development Council of the Future Fit Benchmark - the new benchmark for investors and companies driving towards a future fit world - and the Steering Committee of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI). 

e: amyc@tribeimpactcapital.com


Troy Mortimer
Troy Mortimer is a Responsible Investment & Sustainability expert and is Responsible Investment and ESG Advisor at ILA & Partners.

He has worked globally across multiple industries, primarily asset management, over the last 20 years with KPMG.  Most recently, Troy led the UK Sustainability and Responsible Investment practice.  

Troy has extensive knowledge and experience relating to governance and risk, due diligence, engagement, assurance reporting and responsible investment / ESG practices to sustainability related conversations at companies and with investors.

e: TMortimer@ilaandpartners.com


JP Dallmann
JP Dallmann is an award-nominated Sustainable & Impact Investing (S&II) Advisor, Champion, and Thought Leader, with over 20 years experience in the Financial Services Industry, as a Banking Executive and Advisor at major institutions such as HSBC, RBS, and PwC.
 
JP is the CEO of ILA & Partners, helping Investment Managers to transition into and scale Sustainable & Impact Investing, and has developed a proposition to launch ILA Funds - The investment management firm focused exclusively on S&II - to provide investors with the opportunity to achieve market returns while creating a net-positive impact.
 
He advises several executives, companies and organisations on S&II, and supports various initiatives to raise awareness about the SDGs, including the Impact Founders community, which he co-founded, and Fast Forward 2030, where he is a Board Member.

JP is also the host of the renowned Impact Leaders Podcast, a contributor on Forbes.com, and participates as host and panelist at relevant events, partnering with key figures and major organisations to share best practices and inspire others to push the important agenda of Sustainable Finance.

e: JP@ILAandPartners.com

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Connect with JP Dallmann on Linkedin, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact us to help you transition into Sustainable & Impact Investing - ILA & Partners
How to incorporate SDGs into your business model - Fast Forward 2030
Impact Leaders is produced by Podcast Publishing

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Important:
The content shared on this podcast does not constitute a request, offer, recommendation or solicitation of any kind to buy, subscribe, sell or redeem any investment instruments or to perform other such transactions of any kind.

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