Iulia Busies is Senior Supervisor in the DG Systemic and International Banks at the European Central Bank. In this interview she discusses the progresses in the banking supervision programme on climate and nature risks, the challenges of physical risks assessments, and the tools and data that may help address such supervisory challenges.
Transcript of the interview 20 - Iulia Busies
ECB Report - Good practices for climate and nature risk management
ECB report on good practices for climate and nature-related risk stress testing
Marco Angheben, Head of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at European Data Warehouse (EDW), explores challenges and opportunities in sustainability data collection for the EU’s green agenda. Angheben emphasizes the need for standardized, homogeneous, and comparable data, noting difficulties in obtaining and harmonizing energy performance certificates for buildings across member states. He contrasts this with the transportation sector, where CO₂ emission figures per kilometer from the European Environment Agency provide a consistent metric. Angheben highlights the EDW collaboration with academia, the use of AI in data quality and anonymization, and future regulatory trends.
Mauro Pisu, Senior Economist at the OECD, presents an overview of recent OECD work at the intersection of finance, climate transition and carbon leakage risks. He also explains Implications for firms’ competitiveness and the challenges of data availability to for research and policy making. Finally, he discusses how a recent OECD flagship initiative, the Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches, is contributing to address challenges relating to the production and use of carbon intensity metrics.
Paper cited during the interview
Transcript of the interview 18 - Ep. 18 - 07/2025 - Mauro Pisu (OECD)
András Borsos, Senior Economist at the Central Bank of Hungary, discusses how recent developments in production networks became more relevant for financial stability. András explains how these new elements and data may be included in financial stability models. In particular, he describes the linkages between production networks and climate transition strategies when considering the new ETS framework and climate stress frameworks.
Transcript of the interview 17 - Ep. 17 - 06/2025 - András Borsos
Angela Maddaloni, Research Adviser in the Directorate General Research of the ECB, discusses how and why climate change risks may impact sovereign credit ratings. Angela presents her recent research paper on climate and sovereign risk, giving an overview of the different climate risks and of the trade-off between their short-term costs and long-term effects on sovereign risk of default. She explains which metrics and forward-looking indices may be helpful to include climate risks in sovereign credit rating analysis, and concludes presenting the main findings of her work.
Jennifer Marzullo, Director of Impact Licensing Studio, discusses impact licencing and the Impact Licencing Initiative, a EU-funded project. Jennifer details how ILI may help developing sustainable finance projects in the Global South. She also explains how impact licencing may strengthen research and innovation in Europe, while supporting EU sustainable competitiveness goals.
Transcript of interview 15 – Ep. 15 - 02/2025 – Jennifer Marzullo
Presentation - What is an impact license - SFRF Interview Series - Jennifer Marzullo
Giacomo Bressan works as Associate Director in the ESG Methodology Department at Morningstar Sustainalytics. He presented an overview of the regulatory landscape in the EU, explaining differences and data needs for the Taxonomy, SFDR and BMR. He continued describing the main challenges given by these regulations, among them complexity and partial overlapping of the regulatory requirements. He finally discussed how well companies are tackling this reporting challenges and some future trends in data reporting.
Zuzana Stanton-Geddes is Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist at the World Bank in Brussels. She discussed key results from the Economics for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness series developed by the European Commission and the World Bank. She explains how disaster risk financing fits into climate resilience, and which are the implications regarding natural hazards management, financing strategies in the aftermath of an emergency and preparedness. She concludes discussing some open points for research and policy, such as filling gaps in the data coverage of wildfires and drought data, and budget planning to tackle macro-fiscal impacts of disasters.
Transcription of interview 13 - Ep. 13 – 11/2024 – Zuzana Stanton-Geddes
Theodor Cojoianu is Associate Professor in Sustainable Finance at the University of Edinburgh. He discussed the key innovations of the EU green taxonomy with respect to traditional environmental policymaking tools. He explains ways in which it may help investors in identifying climate risks and nature-related risks. He also presents the challenges in identifying and quantifying nature-related risks for both firms and investors on the financial markets. He concludes highlighting the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach as researchers to tackle more effectively said challenges in sustainable finance.
Adriana Cruz Felix is Vice President and Sustainable Finance Manager of second party opinions for the EMEA region at Moody’s Ratings. She presents the recent trends in the sustainable finance market globally, comparing dynamics across regions. Based on her experience as second-party opinion providers, she gives an overview of the impact of taxonomy implementations in the latest years. She also provides insightful examples on the opportunities and challenges linked to the use of taxonomies by companies. She concludes discussing the role of sustainable finance issuance to support the transition.
Transcription of interview 11 - Ep. 11 – 07/2024 – Adriana Cruz Felix
Presentation - Moody's Ratings
Camille Leca speaks about the role of stock exchanges as facilitators of sustainable investment tools, matching supply and demand, and of their role of educators in raising awareness regarding sustainability issues among market participants. She presents recent market trends regarding sustainable products, distinguishing between short run and long run developments and focusing on an EU perspective. Camille also touches upon the challenges and opportunities that corporates are facing with the new CSRD regulation. She concludes with a reflection on her experience as part of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance initiative of the EU Commission. Camille Leca is Group Head of ESG and Sustainable at Euronext.
In this episode, Erkki Liikanen gives an overview on the development of policy tools on sustainability matters and the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. He compares the ISSB standards and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, and how they interact. He also points out the main lessons learned up to now and what next steps regulatory institutions and market participants should take to proceed towards global sustainability goals. Finally, he discusses possible avenues for researchers, highlighting sustainable accounting as a key complement to standard financial accounting. Erkki Liikanen is Chair of Trustees of IFRS Foundation.
Transcription interview - Ep. 09 – 05/2024 – Erkki Liikanen
In this episode, Marie Brière explains what is green sentiment and why it is important to understand its impact on stock prices and firms behaviour. She indicates how green sentiment can be measured evaluating the arbitrage activity on the green ETF market, and how important it is for financial markets dynamics. Finally, she touches upon the real effects of green sentiment on firms’ behaviour. Marie Brière is Head of the Investor Intelligence and Academic Partnership Amundi Investment Institute.
Linda Zeilina discusses how EU sustainable finance regulation encouraged the introduction and implementation of sustainable practices over the years to the current solid integration of new disclosure regimes in organizations’ strategies. She touches upon pros and cons of ESG-linked carry mechanisms, among the most effective practices to pursue sustainability objectives, when implemented properly. In fact, a misalignment in incentives may prevent effective sustainable finance practices to develop at a mainstream level. Linda concludes with an overview on sustainable finance developments and trends expected by 2025 among policymakers and regulators. Linda Zeilina is founder & CEO of the International Sustainable Finance Centre.
Transcription Interview Ep. 07 – 03/2024 – Linda Zeilina
Presentation - ESG carry mechanisms - Linda Zeilina
The two OECD economists give an overview on green investment fund portfolios, especially those directed to emerging market economies. They propose to use carbon solutions as a significant indicator of green investment for a firm. They discuss key patterns in the geographical mapping of green financial flows between developed and emerging economies, finding that the mapping does not align with country green financing needs. Finally, they provide some ideas on how to increase investment funds potential in financing the green transition, focusing on how to develop a domestic competitive green asset market, tackling data gaps and transparency, and addressing biases towards large companies. Annamaria de Crescenzio is Senior Economist and manager in the International Finance Unit of the OECD. Etienne Lepers is Economist and project manager in the International Finance Unit of the OECD.
Nuru Mugambi is Policy Advisor on capacity building and inclusive sustainable finance for the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network, the widest platform for Emerging Markets’ financial institutions to work together on sustainable finance issues. She presents her work on inclusive green finance in the emerging markets, and discusses how international collaboration in research and policy matters can help finding novel solutions. To make green finance effective, inclusivity has to go beyond the financial realm: it should comprise investment projects, fiscal policy, and social policy, both at the macro and micro level. Knowledge exchange is key to effectively bring together green and inclusive finance. She concludes discussing the role of gender and ethnic diversity in finance and how inclusivity should be nurtured on the workplace.
Transcription Interview 05 - Nuru Mugambi
Ingmar Juergens analyzes from a research perspective the most important steps that the European Commission did as a front-runner in setting a coherent sustainable finance policy trajectory. He highlights the key role of scientific research for an effective policy framework on sustainable finance, and the contribution of transparency for developing sustainability-related disclosure and benchmarks for proper regulation. In the future, the focus of policymakers and researchers should be on tackling supply chain reporting, improving international coordination, making finance work for the green transition, including biodiversity in the conversation and testing for policy impact. Ingmar Juergens is co-CEO and co-founder of Climate and Company.
In this thought-stimulating session, Viral Acharya discusses the challenges of building effective indicators of local physical risk for firms starting from global scenarios to get a mapping of the impact of climate physical risk on a company located on multiple production sites. He explains how aggregate physical risks such as global warming and heat stress affect asset pricing and how these risks become tangible in the real economy, spilling over to the labor market. He also proposes novel mechanisms like an omnibus climate insurance for firms. Viral Acharya is C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern)
Ugo Panizza addresses the challenges of the Green Transition for countries with limited fiscal space, and the needed investments to implement effective climate policies. He explains how sustainability-linked bonds may be an effective alternative to green sovereign bonds, strengthening the credibility of the policy action financed by the bond. Finally, he touches upon the positive experience of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and proposes ways of extend the ETS further inside and outside EU. Ugo Panizza is Professor of Economics and Pictet Chair in Finance and Development at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
In this first episode of our new series of interviews with top sustainable finance scholars, Sony Kapoor talks about the role of climate policy in the policymakers toolbox, and the current and future challenges of reconciling economic development and sustainability. He touches upon the key questions of financing a sustainable transition in low and middle income countries and proposes a sustainable "grand bargain" to tackle them. Sony Kapoor is Professor of Climate, Geoeconomics and Finance at the Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute.