Income with Impact – The Growth of the Green Bond Market – VanEck – 4.12.17

Summary:

Now On Demand.

The size of the green bond market has increased significantly in recent years, with issuance nearly doubling in 2016 from 2015 levels.*

*Source: Climate Bonds Initiative.

Speakers:

William Sokol joined VanEck in 2016 as a product manager for VanEck Vectors ETFs, focusing on the firm’s international fixed income products. Prior to joining VanEck, Mr. Sokol held various product development roles at Prudential Financial, and was a derivatives structurer at BNP Paribas. Mr. Sokol holds a B.S. in Finance from New York University and is a CFA and CAIA charterholder.

Martina Macpherson is Global Head of Sustainability Indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). In this role, Martina is responsible for the management and development of ESG indices, and also for ESG research and investment content.

Prior to joining S&P DJI, Martina served as founder and managing partner at SI Partners Ltd., an independent consulting firm specializing in Economic Environmental Social and Governance (E-ESG) research, products, investment content, and engagement services. Previously, Martina held a range of senior global research, business, and product development roles at Hermes EOS, MSCI ESG Research and Lloyds Banking Group/Insight Investment. Earlier in her career, she also worked for RBS Asset Management, F&C (now BMO) and Deutsche Bank.

Martina holds an M.A. from the University of Frankfurt and a certificate by the Investment Management Association in the United Kingdom. She is a writer, lecturer at University of Zurich and at Henley Business School and presenter on sustainable investment and corporate governance themes – and contributes regularly to industry and academic publications.

Martina is a board member of the Global Network for Sustainable Financial Markets and an independent non-executive director board member and chair of the Global Thinkers Forum. She sits on the U.K. Sustainable Investment and Finance Association’s (UKSIF) analyst committee board, and is a member of Towers Watson’s Thinking Ahead Institute Sustainability Working Group as well as UNCTAD / Sustainable Stock Exchanges’ Green Finance Working Group.

Martina is a member of the Institute of Directors, an affiliate member of ICSA: The Governance Institute and an alumni fellow of the German National Academic Foundation.

Sean Kidney is the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative, an international NGO working to mobilize debt capital markets for climate solutions. Projects include:

• A green bond definitions and certification scheme with $34 trillion of assets represented on its Board and some 200 organizations involved in its development and governance
• Working with the Chinese central bank on how to grow green bonds in China
• An international Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition
• Green bond market development programs in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and East Africa
• And a green finance aggregation platform with UNDP

Sean is a member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, Co-Chair of the India Green Bonds Council and has been a consultant on green bonds to the United Nations Secretary General and a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Expert Committee on Climate Finance. He was previously an award-winning marketing advisor to a number of the largest Australian pension funds and a social marketer and publisher.