Achieving a carbon-neutral global economy requires bold partnerships between policymakers, European and global institutional investors, and asset owners. This panel dives into the critical collaborations needed to align sustainable investments with climate goals. Explore how to tackle Scope 3 and 4 emissions, accelerate decarbonisation, and unlock the pathways for a net-zero economy by 2050. This session will also discuss how innovative finance, cutting-edge technology, and policy reforms can bridge the gap between ambition and action.

• Finance as the bridge to net zero: How are European investors aligning sustainable investment strategies with global climate targets
• Unlocking private capital: Innovations in green finance instruments, including green bonds and sustainability-linked loans
• Global equity in climate finance: Evolving policy frameworks to mobilise capital for developing nations
• Tracking Scope 3 & 4 emissions: Leveraging AI and digital tools for accurate reporting and management
• Public-private alliances: Creating robust frameworks to decarbonise supply chains by 2035.
• Investors & policymakers united: Catalysing long-term investments to embed climate resilience and meet net-zero goals
• Building a 2050 vision: How global alliances can empower investors and policymakers to achieve carbon neutrality

• How do current achievements align with the expectations set by the Paris Agreement in 2015?
• Global Achievements: Growth in renewable energy adoption and energy efficiency improvements- proliferation of national net-zero commitments
• Advances in sustainable and green finance, including the rise of green bonds and sustainability- linked bonds
• Addressing the slow phase-out of fossil fuels in key economies
• Global Equity and Justice: Balancing the responsibilities of developed and developing nations
• What are the most significant barriers preventing global alignment on the 1.5°C target, and how can they be overcome?
• The next decade- policy and diplomacy: The role of NDCs 3.0 in enhancing ambition and implementation
• Strengthening accountability and transparency through the Global Stocktake mechanism

The intersection of climate action and nature preservation offers a transformative opportunity to align natural assets with sustainable investment strategies. This panel examines how nature can drive both climate mitigation and resilience while supporting the broader transition to net-zero. Experts will discuss practical pathways for embedding nature-based solutions into financial systems, including enhancing carbon markets and leveraging sustainable finance mechanisms.

Key themes include the scalability of voluntary and compliance carbon markets, integrating natural assets into portfolios, and ensuring biodiversity preservation aligns with financial returns. The session will highlight innovative approaches to transition planning, including mechanisms that ensure credibility, transparency, and measurable impact while mobilising private capital for nature-based solutions.

• The Climate-Nature Nexus: Recognising natural assets as a cornerstone of transition-ready sustainable investment strategies
• Nature’s role in transition planning: How forests, wetlands, and oceans function as carbon sinks and their integration into portfolios
• Aligning biodiversity and returns: Strategies for achieving nature-positive outcomes alongside financial performance
• Addressing pollution in sustainable finance: Tackling air, water, and land pollution through investment frameworks that drive cleaner production and nature-positive transitions
• Evolving carbon markets: Scaling voluntary and compliance markets to accelerate the net-zero transition
• Ensuring credibility in carbon markets: Addressing challenges such as double-counting, additionality, and transparency to strengthen market integrity
• Transition finance and equity: Mobilising large-scale private investments while ensuring equitable benefits for local communities and stakeholders
• Operationalising Article 6: Exploring its role in international cooperation and market mechanisms to support nature-positive investments

As the physical impacts of climate change intensify, businesses, governments, and communities must act swiftly to anticipate and adapt to such risks. This panel will explore strategies for building resilience to physical climate risks; on proactive planning, risk mitigation, and long-term adaptation. Examining the latest tools and frameworks for assessing climate risks, integrating resilience into infrastructure, and aligning financial and policy responses to protect vulnerable regions and industries. This session will emphasise the critical need for anticipatory action, collaborative adaptation efforts, and resilient infrastructure to mitigate physical climate risks.

• Defining physical risks: Acute -extreme weather events- vs. chronic -sea level rise, long-term temperature shifts
• Examining the growing urgency of addressing physical climate risks in the context of net-zero and broader climate goals
• Mapping and assessing the vulnerability of infrastructure, supply chains, and communities
• Early warning systems and climate forecasting tools Integrating climate risk assessments into financial and corporate planning – stress testing and scenario analysis
• Role of data and technology (AI and geospatial satellite monitoring) in identifying and predicting physical climate risks
• Adapting Infrastructure and Communities: Building climate-resilient infrastructure: flood defences, heat mitigation, sustainable water management.
• Nature-based solutions such reforestation and wetland restoration in enhancing resilience
• Finance and policy in resilience building: The role of financial instruments such as resilience bonds, green insurance in funding adaptation projects

The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has been pivotal in mobilising central banks and financial regulators to address climate-related risks and opportunities. This session will provide an update on the NGFS’s progress, explores its role in accelerating the green transition, and highlight strategies to build resilient, sustainable financial networks. With a focus on how climate risks have been integrated into financial decision-making, aligning investments with sustainability goals, and fostering international collaboration for a robust green financial system.

• How has NGFS influenced central banks and regulators in addressing climate risks?
• What are the gaps or challenges faced by the NGFS in implementing its agenda?
• How can the NGFS support developing economies in greening their financial systems?
• Building resilient and collaborative networks: what role does international collaboration play in creating a unified approach to sustainable finance?
• How can data standardisation and transparency be improved to enhance the credibility
• How can central banks, regulators, and private institutions strengthen their partnerships under the NGFS umbrella?

What if we could go beyond ESG scores to understand how company sustainability behaviours truly impact financial performance?

In this spotlight session, the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society at Imperial College London introduces an innovative, data-driven approach to evaluating corporate sustainability. Drawing on over two decades of global data at the initiative level, our research reveals that not all sustainability actions are equal—transformational initiatives focused on innovation and systemic change significantly outperform symbolic efforts in delivering shareholder value.

As financial markets increasingly demand greater transparency on sustainability risks and impacts, businesses are confronted with a complex landscape of voluntary initiatives and mandatory regulations. This panel will address how voluntary frameworks like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards align with EU regulations, including the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), and the EU Taxonomy Regulation (EUDR). This session will explore the journey towards harmonising these frameworks and the critical role of double materiality in shaping financial disclosures. The panel will offer insights into how these regulations can drive greater sustainability impact and market transparency and the ongoing efforts to bridge the gap between voluntary and mandatory sustainability disclosures, and present investors with methods to navigate the evolving regulatory environment.

• The challenges in aligning voluntary standards(GRI,ISSB, TNFD) with mandatory (EUDR, SFDR, CSRD, ESRS) EU frameworks
• Defining double materiality: Financial materiality versus environmental and social materiality
• Bridging the gap in financial disclosure: Aligning voluntary Initiatives with mandatory EU regulations for impact and transparency
• Beyond Compliance: Harmonising Double Materiality with EUDR, SFDR, and CSRD for a Sustainable Future
• The importance of capturing both risk and impact in corporate disclosures to meet the needs of investors and other stakeholders
• The challenges in aligning voluntary standards with mandatory EU regulations
• How are global initiatives, such as the TNFD influencing the EU regulatory landscape?
• How organisations are preparing for the upcoming EU regulations and the integration of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)?
• Addressing Pollution in ESRS: Exploring how pollution is integrated into ESRS under the double materiality lens, and aligning these disclosures with global reporting frameworks to ensure consistency and actionable insights for stakeholders
• The role of the GRI framework in enabling consistency and comparability in global sustainability disclosures

A discussion to explore how AI is reshaping the ESG landscape, focusing on how it can enhance transparency and accountability in sustainable investing while addressing key challenges. As sustainable investing continues to grow, the intersection of AI and ESG principles offers immense potential to address data gaps, enhance decision-making, and ensure accountability. However, this convergence raises crucial questions around transparency, ethical considerations, and trustworthiness. This session invites participants to examine how AI can empower investors and stakeholders while navigating risks associated with biases and inconsistencies.

• ESG investing faces challenges such as data inconsistencies, greenwashing, and opaque metrics- how can AI help?
• Enhanced data analytics: Examining how AI can gather and process diverse ESG datasets- satellite imagery, sentiment analysis, emissions tracking for actionable insights
• Mitigating greenwashing: Tools to detect inconsistencies in corporate ESG claims through NLP and other technologies
• Examining how to ensure AI applications in ESG are transparent, ethical, and free from bias?
• What does the future of AI-ESG integration look like, and how can stakeholders drive innovation responsibly?
• Can AI-augmented ESG frameworks offer more granular insights and personalised impact measurement for investors?
• Role of regulators and ethical AI frameworks in ensuring accountability

As the world accelerates toward a low-carbon future, decarbonising energy portfolios is a key priority for investors. With rising demand for clean energy, aligning investment strategies with climate goals is essential to ensuring an effective and equitable transition. This panel will explore how investors can mobilise capital, drive innovation, and collaborate to decarbonise energy portfolios while addressing challenges such as equity, access, and a just transition. Discussions will highlight the role of capital markets in scaling clean energy investments and the strategies needed to reduce carbon footprints in developed economies. The panel will also examine how collaboration between governments, the private sector, and civil society can create a sustainable energy transition that supports long-term economic and social resilience.

• Mobilising Capital – How can investors reallocate portfolios to accelerate the shift to renewable and low-carbon energy?
• Innovative Financial Tools – What role do green bonds, transition funds, and private equity play in financing large-scale clean energy projects?
• Public-Private Collaboration – How can investors, governments, and financial institutions create financing structures that unlock private capital for decarbonisation?
• Ensuring a Just Transition – How can sustainable investments support social equity, workforce resilience, and the responsible phase-out of high-carbon assets?

At COP29, the “Baku to Belém Roadmap” was unveiled as a bold strategy to advance global sustainability, targeting $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance by 2035. For the first time, emerging economies will contribute voluntarily, shifting reliance from developed nations alone. The roadmap prioritises tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency, and advancing adaptation in key areas like health and water, with funding for adaptation set to triple. This transformative framework fosters collaboration to meet the UN SDGs while navigating contentious debates on loss and damage funding and mitigation targets, showcasing both progress and persistent challenges in global climate action. This session will address the roadmap’s vision, achievements and remaining challenges. 

As the global economy accelerates toward net-zero emissions, securing sustainable financing for the transition is paramount. The stable and reliable fixed income markets offer a critical source of financing for the global transition to a net zero economy. This panel will explore how fixed income and private markets can become central instruments in the climate transition, particularly in funding large-scale infrastructure projects, renewable energy solutions, and low-carbon technologies. Examining the challenges and opportunities of using fixed income products—such as green bonds, sustainability-linked bonds, and transition bonds—as key financing channels for net-zero transitioning. How can private markets, debt funds, and institutional investors, bridge the financing gaps, especially in emerging markets and high-risk sectors? How can capital can be mobilised in these markets to meet the growing demand for transition funding, alongside regulatory trends and investor expectations. This session will provide insights into the evolving role of fixed income in net-zero transition financing and how private markets can drive innovation and impact, particularly in sectors that require significant capital for decarbonisation.

• How are green bonds, transition bonds, and sustainability-linked bonds playing a pivotal role in financing net-zero transitions?
• How can the fixed income market scale up to meet the immense capital requirements for the global transition to net zero?
• What role do private equity and debt funds play in financing transition projects, particularly those in emerging markets or in riskier sectors that are not yet ready for mainstream capital?
• How can investors differentiate between genuine transition investments and those that may be greenwashing?
• How can a supportive regulatory environment, such as the EU Taxonomy or the TCFD, drive the growth of fixed income instruments for the transition and provide clarity on their impact
• Integration of ESG metrics: how are ESG metrics being integrated into fixed income portfolios and private market investments, especially in relation to carbon emissions and the achievement of net-zero goals?

The concept of a “Just Transition” is critical in ensuring that the global shift to a low-carbon economy is fair and equitable for all stakeholders, especially marginalised and vulnerable communities. While the rhetoric around the Just Transition is gaining momentum, moving from good intentions to tangible, meaningful outcomes requires the alignment of finance, policy, and social objectives. This panel will explore how responsible investors can collaborate on creating and adopting common standards for financing a Just Transition, addressing loss and damage, and ensuring that climate goals are met without leaving anyone behind. The discussion will focus on the role of blended finance, the integration of loss and damage into investment strategies, and how financing mechanisms can drive equitable outcomes for the most affected communities. How responsible investors can move from good intentions to real-world impact in financing a Just Transition. This session will emphasise the need to catalyse the creation of concrete pathways to mobilise the finance needed to enhance climate resilience and equity goals in preparation for COP30.

• Aligning responsible investment with Just Transition objectives: How can responsible investors ensure that their capital is aligned with Just Transition goals?
• Collaborating on standards for Just Transition financing: The importance of creating common standards and frameworks for financing a Just Transition
• The role of financial mechanisms such as climate risk insurance, in addressing loss and damage and supporting a Just Transition- financing climate adaptation and resilience
• How can the private sector contribute to reducing inequalities, promoting social inclusion, and creating sustainable livelihoods through climate investments?
• Embedding NCQC Goals into a Just Transition – leveraging the NCQC framework to set clear data-driven benchmarks for reducing emissions and advancing social equity, ensuring that progress is both measurable and inclusive across all regions and demographics
• Catalyse the creation of concrete pathways to mobilise the finance needed to enhance climate resilience and meet global climate and equity goals in preparation for COP30