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2021 CARE Conference

Accounting for Sustainability and Responsible Investing

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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

David Pitt-Watson

Pembroke Visiting Professor in Finance, Fellow

Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Richard Spencer

Head of Sustainability; Director of Thought Leadership

Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW)

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.

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

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.