Mark Campanale - Sustainability, Planetary Boundaries, and Changing Capitalism
Episode 38, Aug 23, 2020, 11:00 AM
Mark Campanale is an award winning Sustainable Investment expert, the Founder & Executive Director of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and conceived the ‘unburnable carbon’ capital markets thesis. He has twenty-five years experience in sustainable financial markets working for major institutional asset management companies.
Please listen to the episode to be inspired beyond any boundaries and read the “More about Mark Campanale” section at the end of these notes to learn more about his outstanding career and contribution to the financial markets and our society at large.
Highlights:
- How can we change financial Markets for good?
- “There is an old saying: How do you change capitalism? You need to take control of the capital.”
- Mark’s (career) evolution and path to founding Carbon Tracker:
- Going to The University of York
- Crossing the Sahara Desert
- Becoming an analyst assessing projects for Live Aid
- Working on the first fairtrade coffee in Tanzania in1988
- Pioneering green finance alongside Tessa Tennant founder of Merlin Ecology Fund
- Being one of the first “green analyst” in the City of London
- Investing in the first renewable energy business
- Knowing what you don’t like: Stop the city protest
- Inspiring women leaders in the industry
- How global warming motivated Mark to find solutions through the world of finance.
- Xtrata’s IPO and the lack of sustainable impact information on their documentation.
- The long list of supporters, advocates and funders of this movement
- “In the same way that Bill McKibben with the divestment movement managed to change everything, Mark Carney carried this message into the world of financial markets regulation has changed everything.”
- Re-thinking the purpose of finance: The future of the planet, the security of the financial system and pension schemes.
- Paris Climate agreement: Investors are absolutely aligned with a safe outcome.
- The analysis of ecological boundaries and its financial impact
- “Four or five hedge funds are now shorting the fossil fuel industry and going long on the clean economy. I think we are going to see a lot more of that in the future.”
- “Everyone that has sold out of the fossil fuels sector or shorted it in from 10 years ago has done extremely well, both on a relative and absolute basis … but we need a forceful intervention”.
- Using Satellites and AI to help cut carbon emissions: Transparency is a crucial element of accountability.
- Trying to alert the world of an urgent challenge
Time Stamp:
[01:14] Who is Mark Campanale - An introduction to his Bio
[05:25] What is sustainable and impact investing? Intention and boundaries?
[08:03] What ignited Mark’s passion in sustainable finance?
[17:50] Background 10 years story of how Carbon Tracker started and materialised - including funding
[24:00] Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets: coining the phrase together with Unburnable Carbon
[26:00] Ideas are a cursed and the purpose of markets
[28:00] Working with investors and educating the market, including Pension Trustees
[31:00] Bill McKibben, Mark Carney, and their impact
[34:00] The role of the private sector: investors, shareholder, fiduciary duties and pension funds
[36:00] The network of initiatives linking into Planet Tracker and measuring the impact on Ecological boundaries
[40:00] Supply chain: Fish stock as natural capital, deforestation, agriculture and meat production
[42:00] Climate Action 100 and its $46trn coalition and the change on valuations
[45:00] The need for a forceful intervention to close the Fossil Fuels sector
[46:00] The role of firms such as Share Action and Litigation Funds
[48:00] Using AI to create transparency and accountability on Carbon Emissions reporting
[49:20] What impresses Mark about Impact Leaders
[52:00] Call to action
Useful links:
Mark Campanale - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-campanale-1886203/
Carbon Tracker - https://carbontracker.org/
Unburnable Carbon - https://carbontracker.org/resources/terms-list/
Planet Tracker - https://planet-tracker.org/
Robin Millington - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-millington-60036817
Robin Millington - https://planet-tracker.org/about-us/the-team/
Tear Fund - https://www.tearfund.org/
University of York - https://www.york.ac.uk/
Tessa Mary Tennant OBE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessa_Tennant
Jupiter Ecology Fund - https://www.jupiteram.com/UK/en/Individual-Investors/Funds-and-Prices/Jupiter-Ecology-Fund
Stop The City protests - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_the_City
Anne Simpson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-simpson-a3024328
CalPERS - https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/investments/about-investment-office/investment-office-senior-team/anne-simpson
Climate Action 100 - http://www.climateaction100.org/
Waste Recycling Group (Now FCC Environment) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Environment
Asia Energy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCM_Resources
Xtrata - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xstrata
Glencore - https://www.glencore.com/
Jeremy Leggett - https://jeremyleggett.net/
Rockefeller Brothers Fund - https://www.rbf.org/
Joseph Rowntree Foundation - https://www.jrf.org.uk/
Green Peace - https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/
Friends of the Earth - https://friendsoftheearth.uk/
Christian Aid https://www.christianaid.org.uk/
James Arbib https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-arbib-6883973a
Nic Hurd - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hurd
Zac Goldsmith - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Goldsmith
Lord Stern - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stern,_Baron_Stern_of_Brentford
Financial Times article: “A profound contradiction at the heart of climate change policy” https://www.ft.com/content/52f2709c-20f0-11e1-8a43-00144feabdc0
Bill McKibben - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McKibben
Rolling Stone magazine article: “Global Warmings Terrifying New Math” - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-188550/
Mark Carney - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Carney
Mark Carney’s Tragedy of the Horizon Speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5c-eqNxeSQ
Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures - https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/
Ellen Dorsey, Wallace Global Fund - http://wgf.org/ellen-dorsey/
Natasha Landell-Mills, Sarasin & Partners - https://sarasinandpartners.com/stewardship/
Saker Nusseibeh CBE - https://www.hermes-investment.com/ukw/team-members/saker-nusseibeh/
https://www.icgn.org/speakers/saker-nusseibeh-chief-executive-officer-hermes-investment-management
Oak Foundation - https://oakfnd.org/
Frederick Mulder Foundation - http://www.frederickmulderfoundation.org.uk/
Steve Waygood, Aviva Investors - https://www.avivainvestors.com/en-gb/about/our-people/s/steve-waygood/
Tzeporah Berman, Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzeporah_Berman
Aristata Capital - Litigation Fund - https://www.aristata.co.uk/
Watt Time - https://www.watttime.org/
Gavin McCormick - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinmccormick
Key Articles:
Financial Times article: “A profound contradiction at the heart of climate change policy” https://www.ft.com/content/52f2709c-20f0-11e1-8a43-00144feabdc0
Rolling Stone magazine article: “Global Warmings Terrifying New Math” - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-188550/
Bloomberg article: Stranded Assets’ Risk Rising With Climate Action and $40 Oil. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-11/why-climate-action-40-oil-create-stranded-assets-quicktake
How AI and satellites can help cut emissions | The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation - https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/how-ai-and-satellites-can-help-cut-emissions/
Al Gore and Gavin McCormick - CEO of WattTime - announced the launch of a New coalition called “CLIMATE TRACE” — which stands for “Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions” - https://medium.com/@algore/we-can-solve-the-climate-crisis-by-tracing-pollution-back-to-its-sources-4f535f91a8dd
More about Mark Campanale:
Mark was a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds, firstly at Jupiter Asset Management in 1989 with the Ecology Funds, NPI with Global Care, the AMP Capital Sustainable Future Funds, and Henderson Global Investor’s Industries of the Future Funds.
Mark served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets ... leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999-2003) and continues to advise a number of financial institutions including Tribe Impact Capital and Consilium Capital.
Mark is a Founder Director of the UK Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum (UKSIF), 1990-2006, is a member of the Advisory Council of ImpactBase.org; a member of the Advisory Board of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s ‘Conservation and Markets Initiatives’; a member of UNCTAD’s Sustainable Stock Exchange’s Green Finance Advisory Group; and is the Hon Treasurer of The Rainforest Foundation UK.
Mark was also Founder of the Social Stock Exchange, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and more recently Big Society Capital.
--------
Connect with JP Dallmann on Linkedin, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact us to help you transition into Sustainable & Impact Investing - ILA & Partners
Connect with JP Dallmann on Linkedin, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact us to help you transition into Sustainable & Impact Investing - ILA & Partners
How to incorporate SDGs into your business model - Fast Forward 2030
Important:
The content shared on this podcast does not constitute a request, offer, recommendation or solicitation of any kind to buy, subscribe, sell or redeem any investment instruments or to perform other such transactions of any kind.