Overview of the event: 

Speaker: Dr. Kim Schumacher

                   Chartered Environmentalist

Date:       Wednesday, January 27^th, 2021

Time:       15:00 to 16:15

Venue:     Webinar (Microsoft Teams)

The expansion of quality ESG training and research programs is a powerful instrument to address the scarcity of adequately trained ESG experts. The latter constitutes a material risk to financial sector stakeholders who continue to rely mostly on existing financial specialists to cover ESG issues. The growing requirements for quality climate-aligned risk management, ESG factor integration, and non-financial reporting, assembling diverse teams of financial and environmental experts will be a determining factor in scaling sustainable finance and ESG activities across the entire sector. In order to respond to regulatory changes and avoid greenwashing, ESG specialists require vital non-financial skills that go beyond the consultation of ESG ratings of financial and products.

Therefore, this presentation will:

• Provide a short outline of physical and transitional ESG risks.
• Highlight some of the key regulatory developments in- and outside of Japan.
• How are financial sector stakeholders responding to these challenges?
• In what ways can current capacity building-level shortcomings be addressed?

Dr Kim Schumacher – Chartered Environmentalist

Dr Kim Schumacher is a Lecturer in Sustainable Finance and ESG at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In addition, he is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Oxford, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Sustainable Finance at the University of Luxembourg. Prior, he worked as a consultant for the Luxembourg Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development and as a postdoctoral researcher in Sustainable Finance at the University of Oxford. 

He is a member of the GRI Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB). He is also a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and sits on the ISO Technical Committees on Sustainable Finance (TC 322) and Environmental Management (TC 207). Furthermore, he belongs to the Technical Working Groups of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), and the Green Finance Network Japan (GFNJ). He holds a PhD degree in Environmental Science from the University of Tokyo (2017) and Masters degree in Environmental Law and Policy from UC Berkeley (2012).