Day 1 Agenda - Investment Week
Tuesday 22 June 2021
Day 1 will focus on the impact of the net zero agenda on portfolios and the needs of the Investment Week audience, including wealth managers and fund selectors.
Registered delegates will get access to the entire Festival so please do feel free to take a look at all of the agendas. While we hope you will be able to attend as many sessions as possible, we understand that you are busy professionals so you are welcome to attend as much as time allows. The platform we are using to host the digital event allows you to easily log in and out of the event.
Opening welcome and interview.

What Net Zero means for investment funds and how can we tackle the challenges of carbon measurement? Sharing key lessons learnt from our sister title Business Green’s recent Net Zero Festival.
Explaining the key drivers behind the rapid rise of Clean Energy and the investment opportunities this creates:
- Public awareness and desire to change
- Governments including the EU, China, Japan, UK and the US under President Biden are taking decisive action on both the climate emergency and air pollution
- Complete transformation of energy landscape. Wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of electricity generation, even without subsidy
- Complete transformation of transport industry: e-mobility and autonomous driving
- New manufacturing methods, with more software and A.I.
Since the launch of the first socially responsible funds and the coining of the word “Impact” investing in 2005, sustainable finance has undergone a massive transformation, driven by investors’ access to more ESG disclosure by companies and data sources, the emergence of regulations, and financial innovation to deliver investment solutions aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Jens Peers will highlight a few of the market developments, including investors’ challenges to align with the Paris Agreement goals, new regulatory environment, and Mirova’s key initiatives over the last few months. We will cover biodiversity as a core research topic, the impact of regulations on markets and investors’ portfolios, as well as the imperative of targeting dual performance objectives and implementing performance-based corporate engagement policies in light of the increasing number of Net-Zero commitments.
Addressing the investor's predicament of where they are on the spectrum of responsible investment and understanding the differences and direction of travel.
- What is impact investing?
- Evolution of indices
- Potential headwinds
- Existential problems
- What to look for when comparing a mainstream fund and an impact fund vs a benchmark
How do investors make sure that they invest in bonds that are making a difference? Should they worry about “social washing”? MSIM’s process for sourcing and researching Sustainable Bonds.
Considering the intertwined relationship between economics and biodiversity, and the role we all need to play – from international organisations and national governments, to the business community and individuals – if we are to put our economies onto a sustainable footing.