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Climate resolutions at banks in 2021: what investors want, and what banks should do

About This Webinar

The banking sector has a unique ability to mitigate climate risks by withdrawing financing from carbon-emitters...or hasten the climate crisis by continuing to finance high-carbon activities.

Currently, banks are choosing the wrong path: fossil fuel financing levels over the last five years remain dangerously high and show few signs of stopping. This reinforces the need for banks to establish effective policies that reverse this trend.

But, it is also in investors’ core interest to engage strongly with the banking sector on its related financing activities. If bank capital is left to flow uninhibited to coal developers and oil and gas expansionists, investors could potentially see imminent stranded asset risks and physical climate risks impacting returns across their investment portfolios.

Banks globally have made a timid start on climate action, with aspirational pledges to go net-zero by 2050. But these commitments invariably lack the policy changes needed right now to actually temper climate risks for investors. While many banks have adopted fossil fuel exclusion policies for project finance, only a few first-mover banks have adopted robust policies that address the core finance flows to fossil fuels like coal.

That’s why there will be a raft of ambitious shareholder resolutions and director votes filed at major banks in the 2021 AGM season.

In this webinar, Responsible Investor will explore the upcoming AGM season of investor action on banks.

Agenda
  • How can banks ensure they are meeting expectations on their net-zero commitments?
  • What tough questions should investors be asking banks?
  • What does ‘responsible’ investor-corporate engagement, including voting, look like in this sector?
  • What opportunities are there this AGM season for investors to support banks in their focused transition to net-zero?
Who can view: Everyone
Webinar Price: Free
Featured Presenters
Webinar hosting presenter
Director, Head of Stewardship, EOS
Bruce Duguid is head of stewardship at EOS. As well as overseeing the team of engagement professionals, Bruce leads engagements with environmentally-exposed companies across the oil and gas, mining, and utilities sectors. Prior to joining EOS, he was head of sustainability at the UK Green Investment Bank, where he spent four years working on the project to establish the bank. This followed a variety of corporate strategy roles, including a management consultant position at the Boston Consulting Group.
Webinar hosting presenter
Programme Director, The Sunrise Project
Amanda has extensive experience in campaigning, network building and organizational change, working for global organisations in Europe, North and South America. Prior to joining the Sunrise Project, Amanda was the programme director for Greenpeace in South America, responsible for setting the strategic direction and priority campaigns across the region. She also led the global finance team at Rainforest Action Network, pressuring the largest U.S. and European banks to address their role in the climate crisis and significantly reduce their financing of environmentally destructive fossil fuel extraction. With a professional background in the renewable energy and forestry sectors, Amanda holds a MA in Environmental Policy and has lectured at Yale, Berkeley and Leeds Universities.
Webinar hosting presenter
Investor Engagement Manager at Friends Provident Foundation
Colin is the Investment Engagement Manager for Friends Provident Foundation, responsible for the integration of its endowment with its charitable objectives, including via investment policy, asset manager engagement, direct shareholder engagement, and impact investing. Colin is currently leading a programme of engagement with energy utilities on net-zero and just transition.
Previously, Colin worked for the Co-operative Bank and Group for 20 years, during which time he
was responsible for the Co-op Bank Ethical Policy, Co-op Asset Management Ethical Engagement Policy, and Co-op Group Social Goals campaigns.
Colin is a director of the of multi-asset impact fund Snowball, is on advisory committees to the LSE Grantham Institute and University of Manchester Tyndall Centre, and is vice-chair of the climate charity Possible.
Webinar hosting presenter
Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director, Reponsible Investor
Hugh has written extensively on investment, corporate and sustainability issues for UK national newspapers including The Observer and The Financial Times. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in global institutional finance and sustainability. He won the respected Aon Consulting award for European Pensions and Investment Journalist of the Year in 2006. From 2004 to 2007 he was Paris Correspondent and before that Fund Management Editor at Financial News, part of the Wall Street Journal.

Prior to that he was Political and Economic advisor to Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International. From 1997 to 2003 he worked at Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) magazine where he held the position of Deputy Editor, launch Editor of IPE Real Estate and launch Editor of IPE.com.
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