In July 2019, the UK regulators published a joint statement on climate change to set out how climate-related financial risks require a coordinated approach and collective action. In this session, we will hear more on the actions taken to green the financial system, including the Financial Conduct Authority, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Pensions Regulators, and the Financial Reporting Council.

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 The session will touch on a range of topics from issuing supervisor expectations and establishing a Climate Risk Forum, to guidance for pensions schemes and changes to stewardship codes. We will also hear from HM Treasury who will share their work engaging with the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan. Each body will present their latest work through short 10 min presentations, followed by a Q&A from the audience.

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Panel:

Chris Faint, Head of Peer Supervision and Climate Risks, Prudential Regulation Authority, Bank of England

Clare Bolingford, Head of Cross-Cutting Policy, Financial Conduct Authority

Phil Fitz-Gerald, Director of the Financial Reporting Lab, Financial Reporting Council

Fiona Frobisher, Head of Policy, The Pensions Regulator

Chris O’Donovan, Senior Policy Advisor, Her Majesty’s Treasury

Energy efficiency is an important and cost-effective leverage for decarbonization, whilst heat has been a difficult to decarbonize sector. Both areas will be central to achieving net zero by 2050 and finance has the potential to unlock action.

 

This session will touch on some of the financial challenges and outline some of the approaches to overcoming them in the UK so far. The Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will provide an overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with financing heat networks. We will also hear about the Mayor of London’s Energy Efficiency Fund and Kent County council’s experience of using Salix funding for their energy efficiency projects.

 

Panel:

Chair: Edward Hogg, Deputy Head, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy 

Henrietta Cooke, Heat Networks Specialist,  Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Steve Baggs, Energy Manager, Kent County Council

Will Herlinger, Financial modelling and project development, Amber Infrastructure Group

Oliver Houlden, Operations manager, Amber Infrastructure Group

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Impact investment opportunities aim to generate a (commercial) financial return, while also explicitly addressing social and environmental objectives. As investors are increasingly looking to invest in this way, policy officials and spending commissioners have an opportunity to leverage this type of private investment into their plans, and to bring in additional money to invest alongside public sector spending plans. Furthermore, this type of capital is aligned to the public sector’s objective of achieving positive social outcomes. 

 

To encourage impact investors to invest in communities, a level of technical expertise and local capacity needs to be in place locally, to allow local areas to think strategically about the potential for impact investment in their area and to attract the right investors. This session will bring together an expert panel to discuss their experience in bringing impact investment into local communities, through engagement with investors and local government, and to showcase what’s possible alongside some of the limitations.

 

Panel

Chair: Vanessa Morphet, Head of Social Impact investment, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport 

David Hutchinson, Chief Executive, Social Finance

Pete Gladwell, Head of Public Sector Partnerships, Legal & General

Serina Ng, Head of Responsible and Inclusive Business, Deputy Head of Private Sector Department at Department for International Development

Wayne Bexton, Head of Energy Services, Nottingham City Council

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