Organised by
Accounting for Sustainability and Responsible Investing
There is no denying the global climate is changing. 2019 was the second warmest year on record, and ended the warmest decade on record. Climate change is affecting every continent on earth, disrupting the economy and affecting lives. The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change through appropriate financial flows and new technology frameworks; additionally, the UN Secretary-General has proposed six climate-positive actions for governments to take as they begin to individually and collectively begin to build back the economy post-pandemic. Companies will need to adopt long-term systemic shifts to address the changes necessary to comply with the Paris Agreement. This conference will discuss some of the changes that will be necessary to create the accounting framework for sustainability and responsible investing necessary moving forward.
With over 70 industry and academic speakers, this conference is the first of several conferences on the topic and will bring together accountants, finance-professionals, law-professionals, law-makers, standard-setters, economists, investors and scientists as well as academics from the sciences, accounting, finance, law and economics as a vehicle for change.
Featured speakers
Veronica Poole
Global IFRS and Corporate Reporting Leader
Deloitte
Veronica Poole is a vice chair of Deloitte UK, and Global IFRS and Corporate Reporting leader. She leads Deloitte’s contributions to the WEF IBC Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics, and has facilitated the work of the leading sustainability standard-setters to develop a prototype climate standard, helped launch the UK Directors’ Climate Forum—Chapter Zero, and spearheaded Deloitte’s partnership with the A4S Finance for the Future Awards.
Sunny Misser
Chief Executive Officer
AccountAbility
Prior to joining AccountAbility, Mr. Misser was the Global Managing Partner of the Sustainability Advisory Business at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Before that, he was Global Strategy Leader for PwC’s Assurance and Business Advisory Services — the firm’s accounting, risk management, and consulting operation. He also served as the New York Metro leader for the Governance, Risk, and Compliance practice. During his career, Mr. Misser has been a strategic business advisor to CEO’s, Boards, and senior executives at Fortune 500 companies and multi-lateral organizations (MLOs).
Mr. Misser has extensive experience working with global clients, developing and implementing solutions in the areas of strategy, structure, process, people, and systems; improving the efficiency and effectiveness of global value chains; designing and implementing enterprise-wide performance improvement solutions; and managing complex business transformations. His clients have included: Abbott Laboratories, Merck, Pfizer, Bayer, Nestle, Anheuser Busch, UBS, Citigroup, ING, National Commercial Bank (NCB), Saudi Investment Bank, Credit Suisse, Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, ConocoPhillips, Cinergy Duke, Saudi Aramco, Kodak, Seagram, Microsoft, Mobily, Walmart, Zain, National Institute of Standards and Technology, King Khalid Foundation, World Economic Forum, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations.
Previously, Mr. Misser worked in industry, in operations and advanced manufacturing, with Mars, Inc. and Honeywell. He holds an M.S. in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Sloan School of Management, with a concentration in International Business and Technology. He also has an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from M.S. University.
Mr. Misser served on the advisory board of E-Business @ MIT and the advisory board for Innovation and Corporate Responsibility at MIT/Sloan. In addition, he has served as an advisor on the strategy and consulting track at the MIT/Sloan School of Management. Mr. Misser also served on the advisory board of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Lehigh University.
During his career at PwC, Mr. Misser led a team that published a book: Corporate Responsibility – Strategy, Management, and Value. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is often quoted in media such as Fortune, Financial Times, The Economist, New York Times, New York Stock Exchange Quarterly, Forbes, Dow Jones Interactive, Global Finance, and Internal Auditor’s Magazine.
Mr. Misser was honored as the 2017 Distinguished Alumni for Excellence in Industry by Lehigh University, ISE. He was appointed, in 2020, to serve on the Dean’s Advisory Council at Lehigh University.
Richard Spencer
Head of Sustainability; Director of Thought Leadership
Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW)
Alesandro Broedel Lopes
CFO and Member of the Executive Committee of Itaú Unibanco, Trustee of IFRS Foundation and board member of the Value Reporting Foundation
Itau Unibanco
Alexsandro Broedel is Group Finance Director of Itau-Unibanco (IU is the largest financial institution in Latin America) where he developed one of the world´s first integrated reports for a financial institution. IU’s Integrated Report is considered a benchmark in the area by various observers. Alexsandro joined IU in 2012 and before his current position, he was Group Controller and Group Chief Accountant. Before IU Alexsandro was a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil where he had a pivotal role in the country´s full convergence to IFRS in 2010.
Additionally to his position at IU Alexsandro serves on the boards of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC), Cetip – the Brazilian company that offers services related to registration, central securities depository, trading and settlement of assets and securities – and the Reinsurance Institute of Brazil (IRB). He is also a member of the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
Alexsandro is a Fellow Chartered Management Accountant (FCMA, CGMA), holds a PhD in Accounting and Finance from the Manchester Business School and have degrees in both Law and Accounting from the University of São Paulo.
In addition to his executive career, Alexsandro has an extensive link with the academia being also a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Professor at the University of São Paulo. He is a frequent speaker at professional and academic conferences on topics related to financial reporting, sustainability and governance. Alexsandro has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals such as The International Journal of Accounting, The British Accounting Review, The Journal of International Accounting Research, Journal of Governance and Regulation among others.
Delaney Reynolds
Founder & CEO
The Sink or Swim Project; Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami
She’s been called ‘one of the leading voices for the environment for her generation’ by Philippe Cousteau, an ‘Eco Warrior’ by David Smith, and an ‘incredibly valuable force of nature’ by Caroline Lewis of the CLEO Institute.
Delaney is a Marine Science student at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science in Miami, Florida and splits her time between the cosmopolitan city of a few million people and a 1,000-acre island with 43 solar powered homes in the Florida Keys called No Name Key. Like the State of Florida, Delaney’s life is surrounded by water and that’s where her love for the environment comes from.
She is the Founder & CEO of an NGO, The Sink or Swim Project, and its popular website www.miamisearise.com, an educational and political advocacy organization focused on a variety of environmental topics including climate change and sea level rise.
She is also the author and illustrator of 3 children’s books, as well as a comic book on ecology topics and is completing a new book on the impact of climate change and sea level rise in South Florida.
Delaney has been honored with the inaugural National Geographic Teen Service Award, the Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Award for Social Science, the University of Rochester George Eastman Young Leader’s Award, the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, the University of Miami’s Singer Scholarship and Foote Fellowship, amongst other honors.
She serves on the Youth Leadership Council of EarthEcho International, is an Ambassador for Dream In Green, and a member of the CLEO Institute’s Leadership Circle, as well as the Miami-Dade County Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Steering Committee.
Delaney has given a popular TEDx Talk, has addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City, appeared with actor/musician Jack Black on the National Geographic Channel’s Years of Living Dangerously, with renowned world explorer Philippe Cousteau on Xploration Awesome Planet on FOX, and with Vice President Al Gore on MTV’s ‘An Inconvenient Special’ Town Hall.
David Pitt-Watson
Pembroke Visiting Professor in Finance, Fellow
Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
David Pitt-Watson was Pembroke Visiting Professor at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, where he remains a Fellow. His books on responsible investment have been influential globally and translated into five languages.
David was one of the early architects of responsible investment. He was co-founder CEO of Hermes pioneering Focus Funds and Equity Ownership Service. He chaired the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative in the run up to the Paris Climate Conference. He was senior non-executive at KPMG. He currently advises Ownership Capital, Sarasin and Aviva.
Recently he has led the Climate Accounting Group for the Principles for Responsible Investment, focussing on ensuring that accounting standards reflect the challenge of global warming.
Robert Eccles
Founding Chairman, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and Visiting Professor of Management Practice
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Robert is the world’s foremost expert on integrated reporting and a leader on how companies and investors can create sustainable strategies.
He was previously a tenured Professor and Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School.
He is the Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and one of the founders of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). He has recently joined the board of Mistra Centre for Sustainable Markets (MISUM) in Sweden. Bob is also on the Advisory Board of the JANA Impact Capital Fund.
In 2011, Bob was selected as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior, for his extensive, positive contribution to building trust in business, and in 2014 and 2015 he was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
Bob is the award-winning author of a dozen books, including seminal works on integrated reporting, sustainability, and the role of business in society. A prolific writer for both academic and practitioner audiences, he has his own column on Forbes.com. His most recent book (with Michael P Krzus and Sydney Ribot) is The Integrated Reporting Movement: Meaning, Momentum, Motives, and Materiality (John Wiley & Sons, 2015). In this book he suggests the idea of an annual board of directors ‘Statement of Significant Audiences and Materiality’.
From the beginning of his career as an academic and practitioner, Bob has always been dedicated to turning theory into practice. One of his most significant current efforts in this regard is ‘The Statement of Significant Audiences and Materiality Campaign’ in collaboration with the American Bar Association’s ‘Task Force on Sustainable Development’, the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, and the UN Global Compact. The goal of this campaign is that, by 2025, the board of directors of every listed company will publish ‘The Statement.’ In doing so, they will demonstrate the extent to which the company views its role in society to be one of supporting sustainable development for the long-term interests of shareholders. This will help to make sustainability core to both companies and investors.
Bob received an SB in Mathematics and an SB in Humanities and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (both degrees in 1973) and an AM (1975) and a PhD in Sociology (1979) from Harvard University. He joined the faculty of Harvard Business School that year and received tenure in 1989.
Gerben De Zwart
Head of Investment Solutions
APG, The Netherlands
MSc in technical mathematics (1999). CFA designation awarded in 2003. PhD in empirical finance (2008, Empirical Studies in Finance). Publications in academic and practitioner’s journals (Journal of International Money and Finance, Emerging Markets Review, Journal of Portfolio Management, Financial Analysts Journal and VBA Journaal). Strong analytic, creative, project management and presentation skills. Succesful in completing large projects in various asset classes (currencies, fixed income, equity and private equity).
Key themes include:
Can ESG reporting be consistent with basic accounting principles
Why, should, and how can accounting and finance academics become involved
Key thoughts from climate scientists
Implementation issues
Thoughts and ideas from accounting and finance academics
Thoughts and ideas from accounting, finance and investment practitioners, and standard setters
Youth engagement
Measuring, managing, and monetizing the impact of sustainability
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