Forum Agenda | What is happening in 2026

An Invitation-Only Gathering

Climate adaptation and resilience have quickly shot up to become a crucial topic to address for investors and financial institutions alongside their mitigation efforts. From physical risk assessments – and the data required to undertake them – to engaging on resilience issues and investing in adaptation, this session will explore how investors are working to progress their thinking and actions on the topic. Topics: Evolving approaches to physical risk assessment across asset classes; Data availability and options; Adaptation investments: opportunities beyond early-stage.

This session will showcase investor and corporate views on mapping and managing AI’s energy footprint credibly.

Emerging markets sit at the centre of both the energy transition and the real economy shift. This session looks at what that means in practice for investors: where blended finance, DFI partnerships, and green bond issuance accelerate investment, and to what extent EM exposure is becoming a core part of transition-aligned investing.

After some tumultuous years for ESG investing, asset owners are making their sustainability demands clearer in their investment mandates. In this panel, asset owners and managers will come together to discuss how this is reshaping the industry and driving sustainable investment. Topics: Diverging European and US sustainability expectations – how is it working in practice?; Insights into asset-owner manager dialogues; Opportunities and stewardship progress; Reflections on the reset.

With hundreds of financial institutions and corporates globally now disclosing their nature risk and opportunities and the first global stocktake under the Kunming-Montreal Framework approaching quickly, this session will explore nature’s place on the agenda of North American investors – and where opportunities are emerging.

How AI is being governed on a corporate and regulatory level is becoming a key theme for investors, and has made its way into a number of shareholder proposals in this year’s AGM season. Furthermore, one of the first key regulations covering AI governance – the EU AI Act – is coming into force this year. This session will give practical examples of AI governance approaches and discuss what types of disclosures and board expertise investors expect, and how this fast-moving topic is expected to feature in sustainable investing strategies going forward.

Portfolio decarbonisation approaches by institutional investors are increasingly being tweaked or reassessed as emissions in the wider economy are not falling at the pace anticipated when most net-zero goals were set. As a result, investors are increasingly looking to ensure their climate strategies reflect this and help drive real-world decarbonisation. At the same time, corporates themselves are recalibrating – moving from headline net-zero pledges toward more granular, sector-specific transition plans, and facing growing pressure to show credible capital expenditure alongside their target. This panel explores how investors and companies are adjusting in tandem: what real-economy decarbonisation requires in practice and how post-2030 strategies are being reshaped by this. Topics: Beyond decarbonised portfolios to real-world capital; Corporates in transition: moving from pledges to credible capex and sector-specific plans; What does this mean for Paris alignment?; Engagement as a lever.

Topics: Green bonds, transition bonds, blended structures; Banks and investors on where demand is heading; Life after the ESG-fund relabelling wave.

In some corners of the institutional investor market, natural capital investments are growing rapidly and becoming closer to a mainstream asset class. While key barriers still exist for other asset owners and managers, this may be starting to change with momentum behind standards and frameworks, market-based mechanisms and sizeable funds launching. This session will explore what’s needed for natural capital investments to become a scalable mainstay asset class.

Topics: What’s driving private capital?; What are some realistic expectations of COP31; Adaptation and loss-and-damage finance mechanics; Implementation opportunities.

Topics: After years of promises of standardisation, is that still a reality?; AI opportunities; Geospatial data – what’s next?; What do investors want from regulators and standard setters?; Stewardship for disclosures.