Brian Matt: The Real Talk on ESG From Inside the NYSE

In this episode we dive deep into the engine room of sustainability, with a guest who has one of the most unique seats in the house.

I sit down with Brian Matt, Head of Sustainability Advisory at the New York Stock Exchange, to unpack what’s really going on behind all the ESG headlines. 

With two decades of experience in investor relations and sustainability, Brian offers a rare dual lens into both investor expectations and corporate realities when it comes to sustainability strategy, regulation, and storytelling.

In this candid and insightful conversation, we cover:

🌱 How ESG has evolved from checkbox compliance to value creation

📊 What asset managers actually look for in ESG disclosures

🧑‍⚖️ Why fiduciary duty and political pressure are reshaping stewardship teams

🏛️ How new regulations like CSRD and California climate rules are impacting listed companies

📈 And why smaller public companies aren’t necessarily doomed in today’s ESG landscape

If you like sustainability strategy, investor behavior, and behind-the-scenes capital markets insight, this one's for you.

Oh, and if you haven't already... subscribe to The Blunt Dollar for more raw and honest finance conversations.

New episodes drop every other week! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.

And last, but not least, don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-ramirez-moreno-cfa/

Enjoy the episode!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any financial decisions.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A lot of what people see today is just simply what's
out in the headlines forgreenwashing or for things that
they might look nice on thefront page for a journalist
writing a story.
Reality is sustainabilityofficers are about the busiest
people you'll find in a company.
You also find their budgetsgrowing probably faster than a
lot of parts of the companybecause there's so many new
responsibilities being added onto them.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Blunt Dollar
.
Brian Matt, head of ESGadvisory at the New York Stock
Exchange.
He works with thousands oflisted companies on how to
communicate their sustainabilitystory and how to get it right,
especially as expectations frominvestors, regulators and even
customers keep shifting.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You have a decision when you're going to standardize
data collection as well as alot of different processes of
working up your supply chain.
Decision you have to makebetween build, buy, partner.
Build means you got to addheadcount.
Buy means bringing somethingin-house to be able to operate
build a workflow tool, forexample.
Or partner, maybe do somethingmore bespoke with an outside

(01:03):
firm and we've got astandardized process that turns
that into the best informationwe have and the best investment
decisions that we can make.
That pretty much insulates youfrom questions about that.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramírez.
Welcome everyone to a newepisode of the Blunt Dollar.
Today's guest is someone who'sright at the heart of how
companies and investors arethinking about sustainability.
Someone who's right at theheart of how companies and
investors are thinking aboutsustainability Brian Matt, head

(02:13):
of ESG advisory at the New YorkStock Exchange.
Brian's worked across capitalmarkets, investor relations and
ESG for over 20 years and beforejoining the New York Stock
Exchange, he built ESG andinvestor relations platforms at
places like IHS Market and Epreo, helping companies understand
how investors actually look atrisk performance.
And now, of course, esg At theNew York Stock Exchange.
He works with thousands oflisted companies on how to

(02:35):
communicate their sustainabilitystory and how to get it right,
especially as expectations frominvestors, regulators and even
customers keep shifting.
In this conversation, we getinto what ESG really looks like
behind the scenes, beyond theheadlines.
We'll talk about how investorbehavior is changing, why
procurement teams are becomingESG gatekeepers and what

(02:56):
companies need to know beforethey go public.
So, whether you're an investor,a founder or just curious about
how ESG is shaping businessstrategy, this episode is going
to be packed with insights.
Brian, welcome to the BlondeDollar.
It's absolutely amazing to haveyou here.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Ignacio, you have a voice for podcasting.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I've been told, I have a face for podcasting.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Great to be here, glad to join you, looking
forward to the conversation.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Absolutely.
You know what for podcasting.
Great to be here, glad to joinyou.
I'm looking forward to theconversation.
Absolutely you know what.
This is the first time someonetells me that, so I'll take that
as a huge compliment,especially because of my Spanish
accent.
Now, before we dig into theconversation, which, of course,
today is going to move aroundESG and sustainability quite a
lot, I just want to add a littlepiece of promotional content,
because the one reason why Brianand I are talking today is

(03:49):
because the CFA Institute verykindly made the intro.
Why?
Well, because Brian and I areboth going to be meeting in
Chicago very soon, between the4th and 7th of May, at the CFA
Live Summit.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
We're going to have 1,200finance professionals gathering.
We're going to be talking aboutsome of the biggest topics

(04:11):
shaping the finance industrytoday.
Brian is going to be there, Iam going to be there, and a lot
of very interesting people aregoing to be there.
So if you work in the industryand want to become part of the
conversation, make sure youattend the CFA Live Chicago
conference.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Great time to get that community together.
I think it's the first timethat event has taken place since
COVID, and there's a lot totalk about in the asset
management industry, among assetowners and, of course, in my
world as well.
So great time for everyone tolearn from each other.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, and it's actually nice to see people in
real life, because we're used todoing Zoom calls and video
conferences and things like that, but it's always better when
you see people in person.
Brian, why don't we starttalking about you?
Tell us a bit about what is itthat you're actually doing in
your day-to-day at the New YorkStock Exchange?
Sure?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
So start off, think of NYSE as the equities division
of Intercontinental Exchange, aparent company, ICE has been
around for 20 plus years at thispoint is involved in a lot of
different exchanges.
If you think about exchanges asa whole, the job of an exchange
is to discover prices.
It's to get buyers and sellerstogether, determine what those

(05:26):
buyers and sellers can betrading or receiving in terms of
delivery, and then lettingthose organizations put together
price discovery.
So, first and foremost, ICE hasbeen involved in the
environmental business for along time.
We're about 95% of all futurestrading on carbon today.
So if you get, for example, anEU ETS contract, you know that's

(05:47):
a ton of carbon delivered forEU ETS or CBAM purposes.
That's something that we putbuyers and sellers together and
determine a price on.
We also do that in therenewable energy markets for
renewable energy credits, etc.
So we're in the price discoverybusiness there.
Then we just in general asIntercontinental Exchange.
We then service the investorcommunity and about 2017, 2018,

(06:09):
we started to get a lot moreinbound demand for information
that they could use to evaluatecompanies, evaluate their
investments more broadly onnon-financial characteristics
the kind of things that are notgoing to show up in a financial
statement, but are very materialto the way you make an
investment decision or you makea voting decision.
So after that, we then made acouple of decisions as a

(06:32):
business.
First, we built our own ESG asa reported data universe.
Second, we acquired a companythat operates in the physical
risk business.
We also acquired a company thatoperates in the climate
transition risk businessphysical risk business.
We also acquired a company thatoperates in the climate
transition risk business.
I then joined NYSE in 2021,essentially to become the face
to the corporate issuer to thelisted company community for

(06:53):
those data sets, as well as tocreate educational programs for
companies that are just startingto build sustainability
programs inside their company,as well as to set up networking
opportunities.
One nice part of working at theNYSE I have 2,300 listed
companies here.
That includes the leaders insustainability across

(07:14):
essentially every industry.
If there's a question that wecan't answer here pretty good
odds we'll know someone who can,and we can make a lot of those
connections ourselves.
So that's sort of where I sit.
Think of what I'm doing as sortof an extension of what
Intercontinental Exchange isproviding out into the world.
We've rebranded that group asICE Climate, since there's so
much demand today for climateinformation for investors, that

(07:37):
same information is beingproduced by, and evaluated by,
companies that are listed on theNYC as well.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Very cool, and did you always so?
Before I dig a little bit moreinto NYC and what you're doing
there, talking about you, like,did you always know that you
wanted to work in ESG or is itsomething that kind of happened
a bit randomly?

Speaker 1 (07:59):
I'll say it's a little pragmatic.
I've been in corporate investorrelations world for a very long
time, started in 1998.
I started getting involved withcompanies telling investment
stories out to investors.
I started building platforms,tools and advisory services that
help companies find the rightinvestors to match up to their
investment stories.
Around middle of the teens youstarted to see a lot more

(08:23):
investors like we were sayingbefore start to need information
that's not just on thefinancial statements in order to
make those decisions.
Honestly, one of the triggershere had more to do with, say,
on pay going required in the US,where the voting decision
became that much more important.
Each US investor or each UScompany now had to face

(08:43):
investors for a package ofmanagement compensation
evaluation for each investor.
What that did is it staffed upinvestor stewardship teams.
Those stewardship teams have tofollow fiduciary duty.
They have to go through andevaluate not just comp but
everything else in governancefor the company, as well as
other material E&S issues.
After that I realized there's aspace in the market for

(09:05):
education.
I built a couple of tools thathelp companies look at how their
voting decisions are likely totake place across investors then
how those investment decisionsare likely to take place using
non-financial information.
Then did more bespokeconsulting work later on and
then joined NYSE in 2021.
Bespoke consulting work lateron and then joined NYSE in 2021.

(09:30):
But really for me it reallycame down to this became a very
important part of the investmentdecision.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's why I'm here 100%.
Wow, what a journey.
I love it.
It's really, really interesting.
And what I also findinteresting is when we talk
about the New York StockExchange, I mean, the first
thing that comes to mind, atleast for me, is trading, ipos,
listed companies, but notnecessarily ESG and it's very

(09:54):
interesting hearing you talkabout all these things.
I mean, you've mentionededucation, you've mentioned
network, you've mentioned dataproviding, you've mentioned
helping consulting for votingdecisions and so on, tons of
different things.
I don't know how many peopleare working in the NYC on this,
but maybe can you give us a bitof color of what is the key

(10:15):
priority that you guys arefocusing on right now, because
you talked about a lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah.
So let's say, just within NYSE,three goals.
It's education.
That education is not just forour existing listed companies,
it's also for the next round ofcompanies that may be public.
I'll say, fingers crossed.
We have a few S1s that havejust been filed, some good
opportunities to bring companiesout of the public markets.
Here's hoping we see a lot moreof those companies coming soon.

(10:41):
Goal of each of those companies, of course, is to meet investor
demands and maximize theirvaluation.
Therefore, they're going toneed to tell stories that are
not just on the financialstatements.
That's the education front.
From there, networking Againwithin the sustainability
community.
Honestly, a lot of folks arenew to the job, have taken this

(11:01):
on relatively recently and canlearn a lot from true experts in
this space.
There's also a lot of certainindustries that's done on a
pre-competitive basis.
Industries working together tocome up with one standard, for
example, of how a product carbonfootprint is evaluated for a
common product saves everyonethe time and allows everyone to
make decisions better.
And then, finally, the datatools, so things that you can

(11:24):
put on companies' desktops tohelp them benchmark against what
others are putting out into themarket.
So that's just the NYSE part,really.
Then up at IntercontinentalExchange.
So much of the demand recentlyis around climate.
It's around how do I look at aportfolio around transition risk
?
How do I look at every assetclass, not just equities, but
into fixed income, into munis,into MBS, cmbs, into every other

(11:48):
type of asset class?
How do we look at that relativeto a transition?
Also, every day you see moreheadlines about hazards, about
physical risk.
What are the risks toparticular assets that you may
own, or even the supply chainsof those assets?
That's really where we'reseeing a lot of the demand here
is in that climate space.
A nice part there is.

(12:09):
I get to talk to both investorsand companies about how they're
both making decisions and, tobe honest, they're more and more
aligned these days when itcomes to making sure that
companies are evaluatinginformation that is important to
their businesses and havingthat line up with how investors
make investment decisions.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
I mean you have such a cool job.
I, honestly, I didn't even knowyour job existed before I
started researching on yourprofile.
You're in such a rare positionbecause you get to hear directly
from both the companies, andnamely the listed companies, but

(12:48):
also the large institutionalinvestors.
So I have the feeling that youhave this front row seat on how
ESG priorities are evolving onboth sides of the table, and I
wanted to ask you what'ssomething you've learned from
that unique vantage point thatyou think most people in the ESG
space don't see?

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh, a few ways you could take that, I think.
First off, a lot of what peoplesee today is just simply what's
out in the headlines All kindsof headline risk out there for
companies, for greenwashing orfor things that might look nice
on the front page for ajournalist writing a story.
Reality is, sustainabilityofficers are about the busiest

(13:31):
people you'll find in a company.
You also find their budget'sgrowing probably faster than a
lot of parts of the companybecause there's so many new
responsibilities being added onto them.
I think that's the kind ofthing that doesn't always show
up on the front page.
Companies these days.
I guess they have to be muchmore careful about what they
talk about.
Investors it's a little furtheralong in that there's regulation

(13:53):
on investors that prevents themfrom saying one thing and doing
another.
We have names, rules that havepopped up across the globe.
If you call something asustainable fund, you need to
define what that is and makesure that you own assets that
meet that sustainabilitycriteria.
There's a lot more requirementson that than there used to be.
There was a time when it waspossible to simply add

(14:15):
sustainable onto the name ofyour fund, but not necessarily
change the strategy.
There's a lot of work beingdone in this space and the nice
part is it's really become, it'sone of those differentiators
that shows up when an assetmanager pitches for business
with an asset owner, and it alsoshows up when companies
approach investors and whencompanies approach their

(14:35):
customers, going directly intothe decisions that create value
on both sides of the ledger.
That's just that's not the kindof thing that shows up on the
headlines as much, but it's whatwe see every day when we're
talking to professionals.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
So I want to bounce back on something you just said
and this is a bit like thecontroversial question of the
interview, probably, but youwere talking about
sustainability officers sayinghow busy they are and, yeah, the
huge budgets they've had tohire people, but I wanted to ask
you how much that is really thecase today, because we've seen
ESG going from boom a couple ofyears ago to now Well, from boom

(15:13):
then to a little bit of abacklash and now to something
like more nuanced, I would say.
So how has your day-to-day workchanged over these past few
years as the ES landscape and,more importantly, the perception

(15:34):
of ESG shifting A couple ofways.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Okay, again, you'll see a lot of headlines out there
that aren't necessarilyreflective of what's going on
inside companies.
I think the biggest focus mycompanies have had from the mid
to large cap size over the last,say, six to nine months is
what's going to happen with CSRD.
What's going to happen withCSDDD, the requirements coming
from Europe?
A large number of my companies,even though they're listed in
the US, had sufficient employeesize, revenue et cetera, to have

(15:59):
to go through a mandatory CSRDreporting process.
That may change now goingforward with the way the EU
Omnibus looks.
It does look like they'll pullback on some of the requirements
for smaller businesses, but thereality is those companies had
to prepare not just to collectdata internally but to do that
in a standardized, repeatableand potentially audit quality

(16:22):
format.
The same way you would withfinancials.
You've got to do the sameprocess for non-financial
information.
So I'd say that was still thegrowth.
In a lot of cases there's also abalance.
Some companies have a decisionwhen you're going to standardize
both data collection as well asa lot of different, for example
, the processes of looking up inyour supply chain.

(16:43):
The decision you have to makebetween build by partner.
Build means you've got to addheadcount, buy means bringing
something in-house to be able tooperate and build a workflow
tool, for example.
Or partner, maybe do somethingmore bespoke with an outside
firm.
I'd say over the last yearyou've seen more companies
willing to add some of thatstaff in-house and there's a

(17:08):
balance now depending on what'ssomething that really is only
going to be a one-time function,just getting you up to
compliance, for example, versussomething that will sit in your
operations over the long run.
So a lot of decisions beingmade between companies that the
budget is not always justinternal spend.
Sometimes it's external, forone year or for multi-year spend
depending.

(17:28):
There's also some scale comingto that as well.
From the data perspective, fromthe workflow tools perspective.
I think you are starting to see, once that problem has been
solved a few hundred times, the101st becomes cheaper, so on and
so forth.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, wow, that, wow, that's interesting.
Yeah, it's funny becausedefinitely, especially for those
of us that don't really work inthe space and just see the
headlines, I understand that ourperception might be a little
bit distorted at times.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
The other thing to think about from an investor
perspective investors and I'vespoken previously to that most
of the issuers but from aninvestor perspective investors
and I've spoken previously tothat most of the issuers but
from an investor perspective.
So much of the pushback againstESG investing boils down to are
you inserting your politics oryour own personal views in front

(18:19):
of fiduciary duty?
And I think what you'll hearfrom investors is they've built
up very specific processes tomake sure that they're using
data to evaluate theirinvestment positions and to make
sure that those investmentpositions are the information
that's used to maximize andgenerate returns.

(18:40):
Also, when it comes tofiduciary duty, it's getting the
exact details right in amandate.
What are you looking for as anasset owner in a mandate?
Let's find a way to solidifythat in the mandate and follow
that mandate to the letter.
When it comes to a retail fund,for example, if you run a retail
mutual fund, there's a lot ofnew tools that allow you to

(19:00):
listen for and collect thevoting preferences of your
retail investors to make sureyou're following fiduciary duty.
So I think there's a lot morethat investors with those
questions posed to them havebeen able to respond and say
yeah, we're following fiduciaryduty because we are listening
exactly to the needs of ourasset owners, of our retail

(19:21):
investor community, and we'vegot a standardized process that
turns that into the bestinformation we have and the best
investment decisions that wecan make.
That pretty much insulates youfrom questions about whether
you're simply making a decisiononly for your own personal
purpose, as opposed to those ofyour fiduciaries, of your asset

(19:44):
owners or retail clients.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
So, talking about investors, I'd like to get a
little bit of those juicyinsights that only a real
practitioner like you canpossibly share, because you work
very closely with theresponsible investing teams of a
lot of these asset managers andasset owners and so on, on
things like voting proxies,engaging with boards and things

(20:07):
like that.
What are the key ESG themes orthese closures that these asset
managers are prioritizing intheir conversations with
companies at the moment?
Hey there, quick favor to askIf you enjoy the blunt dollar,
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(20:27):
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finance conversations going.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
So a lot of net new simply around climate.
So start off with a lot ofadditional asset owner mandates
are starting to mention climate.
There's a push for some assetowners to rotate over to climate
aware benchmarks that are awareof the need for an energy
transition over the long run.
Long run, so as those assetowners take their business out

(21:14):
to market, asset managers needto be able to respond and
evaluate each security in theirportfolio as to what it looks
like from a transitionperspective.
So we're seeing a lot moreinvestors adding data, adding
capabilities internally to dothat evaluation themselves and
then also just having thatdialogue with companies.
If a company hasn't put out agoal or a target for what they

(21:35):
intend to do around transition,asking more questions about it,
learning what the company'sapproach is In some cases.
There are some companies whereenergy transition is not
material at all.
You're a small biotech company.
You're working on a molecule,probably not the most material
item, so those investors do haveto build their own views and
materiality on top of it, but itis something that there's a lot

(21:57):
more conversations going onthere.
The other one would be physicalrisk and this is something that
, since we see this every day interms of hurricanes, in terms
of wildfires, risk to particularassets.
My ice climate team's done alot of work in the muni space,
in particular, when it comes torisk being applied to muni
investments.
That's becoming a much moreintense conversation between

(22:21):
companies and investors.
Investors have a lot more toolsto look at their portfolio when
it comes to physical risk, andit's potentially not just to
look at the assets owned by theinvestee companies, but also to
look at the supply chain, tolook at.
Are the key suppliers of one ofmy investee companies facing

(22:41):
particular types of physicalrisk?
That's a lot of new information.
A lot of new tools areavailable out there for
investors to have thosediscussions.
After that, I'd say, just goahead.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
No, no, I was just going to bounce on.
You were talking about intenseconversations, and right now one
of the most intenseconversations I guess we can
possibly read about on the newsis how ESG has become a bit of a
political flashpoint in certaincountries, and I feel that

(23:14):
asset managers have been caughtlike in the middle, facing
pressure from every front.
So I wanted to get yourperspective on how asset
managers are adjusting their ESGstrategies in response to both
the political and the culturalbacklash that they're
experiencing.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
We talked a bit about this already, so it somewhat
repeats.
When it comes to fiduciary duty, the question that may come up
from a political perspective isare you following fiduciary duty
?
Are you doing what your assetowners, what your retail
investors, are looking for?
And that really has.
Everything else kind of stemsfrom that.

(23:54):
The work investors are doingall stems downhill from that in
terms of taking data sources,coming up with their own
methodology for applying on topof those data sources, and then
just being very clear aboutterminology, about we call
something a climate fund.
What does that mean?
What is the goal of this fund?
How do we measure against that?

(24:14):
Stewardship then becomes adiscussion with companies and
with investors.
Stewardship teams have to putmaybe-.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Sorry to interrupt.
Can you just define whatstewardship is for our listeners
that are not familiar with theterm?

Speaker 1 (24:30):
There's two groups that I talk to investors most
consistently, one would be ahead of responsible investing.
Their job is let's take in datathat we need to evaluate a
whole range of investments.
Let's produce a materiality mapto determine one of the most
important issues that we need toevaluate.
Across those maps, then let'sproduce the strategies we need

(24:51):
in order to evaluate each of ourinvestee companies for an
investment decision.
Stewardship's a bit different.
When it comes to an equityinvestment, you have a vote once
a year at the annual meeting.
You'll be able to vote ondirectors.
You'll be able to vote onvarious shareholder proposals
and I mentioned before, say, onpay as a non-binding, but it is
a vote that's required for UScompanies.

(25:12):
So you'll actually vote onmanagement's pay packages once a
year.
That stewardship team isresponsible for again taking all
the information that they have,also taking the needs of their
end customers, of their assetowners, and determining should I
vote for or against on eachproposal.
Stewardship teams will typicallytalk to companies at least once

(25:32):
a year.
Usually there's an off-seasonengagement that takes place
October, november, december andsometimes again during proxy
season when there's a particularvote out there as opposed to an
investment team that's going totalk to companies pretty
consistently throughout the yearas new information is available
.
But both of those organizations.
Again, you start withfiduciuciaryDude.
It's what's the best outcomehere for my asset owners?

(25:56):
That translates into investmentdecision, but also from the
stewardship team to a votingdecision as well.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Can we talk about stewardship for a second?
Because, like 10 years ago, Ifeel like stewardship teams were
like very small and off to theside and now they're like
superstars.
They're central players in ESGpolicy, proxy voting.
Even when you're constructing afund from scratch, you need to
have these people on board.
How has the role of stewardshipinside asset managers changed

(26:26):
over the past few years?

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah.
So again, this starts to me, Istart to see this when, say,
unpaid becomes required in theUS.
That's when stewardship teamsagain to file fiduciary duty,
you have to evaluate thecompensation program of your
management team from yourinvestee relative to the total
return of the company.
Are shareholders getting returnwhile management's getting

(26:48):
return?
And the alignment between thetwo of those.
After that, then stewardshipteams, as they build up that
staff, really then started tohave the ability to do a lot
more of that research in-house.
Now, obviously, there's twoproxy advisors in the US I guess
Egan Jones is sort of a third,but the two proxy advisors in
the US provide research toinvestors to be able to either

(27:09):
follow their own approach tofiduciary duty, as determined by
the type of policy that theywork with, or just simply take
the data and take the researchand come up with their own.
What we are seeing, though, is alot more investors making
independent voting decisions,separate from the
recommendations from those proxyadvisory firms, and coming up

(27:30):
with their own voting policieseven coming up with their own
voting policies, even coming upwith their entire way, their own
data.
There's one large US assetmanager that's actually openly
said this year they're not goingto look at the recommendations
from any proxy advisor as ofnext year.
They're not even going to takethe research in, because they
can ingest the data themselves,come up with their own
independent viewpoints and makethe voting decisions following

(27:52):
fiduciary duty.
All by themselves, it speaks tohow much more powerful those
teams have gotten, with theability to intake data and turn
that data as well as thecommentary from an analyst doing
the work on a company togenerate the best possible
voting decision.
Work on a company to generatethe best possible voting

(28:14):
decision.
That's a lot.
Of.
Asset managers have added staffin that case, and the largest
stewardship teams, as you said,are part of every conversation,
including when you set up themandate, to make sure that
you're meeting the needs of theasset owner.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
So, when you were introducing the concept of
stewardship, you also threw uparound another very big term,
which is financial materiality,and I wanted to ask you if asset
managers, from your perspective, are pushing companies to align
ESG reporting more closely withfinancial performance and

(28:46):
materiality, or not at all.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Materiality or not at all.
Okay, look across.
There's a number of regulatorsthat are evaluating the ISSB
standards InternationalSustainability Standards Board,
part of the IFRS Foundation.
That organization has rolled upa number of other single
materiality or financialmateriality standards and come
up with an overallsustainability standard as well

(29:10):
as a climate-focused standard.
There are different regulatorsglobally.
Essentially, iosco has put anendorsement out there that this
is the right approach to haveone global set of standards.
After that, each regulator isstarting to work on this.
For my NYSE-listed companies,the Brazilian government,
brazilian regulators, are goingto be some of the first that
will require their companies toreport on that ISSB standard.

(29:33):
Now investors will tell youhaving one standard that
includes a view of financialmateriality, such that the
information that's beingreported on companies are going
to choose.
They'll tell you these are themost material items for us.
These are the items that we'regoing to disclose on.
Maybe something that isn'tmaterial like I said with the

(29:54):
biotech company and climateearlier, maybe they're not going
to disclose on.
Investors are very supportive ofcoming to that one standard and
I think you'll find a few largeinvestors.
Norges Bank has been out thereopenly sending notes out to
various providers, helping tosupport that centralization and
harmonization of standards.
So we'll see progress on thatover time.

(30:16):
Again, companies will followalong as that standard becomes
required in certain markets.
But it's something we've alwayslooked at here at NYSE it's
write once, read many as opposedto write many, read many.
We always rather have companiesproducing just one standard,

(30:37):
where possible, that meetsstakeholder needs, without
having to go to the alphabetsoup, as they always called it,
of dozens of different standards.
That helps companies and wethink it helps investors too.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
So I propose we take a 180 degrees shift.
Now we were talking about howthings are seen from the
investor's perspective.
Now I want to talk about whatcompanies are saying.
So what are the biggest ESGrelated concerns or questions
that you're hearing from companyleaders right now?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
So I guess a lot of our conversation again up
through EU Omnibus was around,essentially, the move from
voluntary to mandatoryrequirements around disclosure.
Of course, sec passed a rulelast year that was held up in
court and may not be pursued bythe future SEC.
However, the state ofCalifornia has a climate

(31:28):
disclosure requirement that isnow in force and they're simply
just setting up the structurefor how they'll collect data,
enforce that rule, et cetera.
Numerous other states arefollowing along, as well as
different other jurisdictionsout there.
Once there's a mandatoryrequirement for companies,
obviously they need to pushthrough with compliance.
Oftentimes those mandatoryrequirements include audit

(31:52):
verification, attestationrequirements to the side, and
that also means you need to setup the process to make sure that
you can meet that auditstandard.
So, taking data internally,potentially from facilities
across the globe, aggregatingthat information, producing a
single standard for a singlereport that can go out, as well

(32:12):
as what you can use to makedecisions internally around
climate, is an important part ofthat.
Beyond that, companies are alot of.
What you're doing insustainability these last few
years is trying to find theright ways to measure what
you're doing.
How do I produce the right KPIsfor my program?

(32:32):
How do I show the ROI on myprogram?
I host a summit once a year.
Our next one's coming up nextweek in April, but the last
session of last year's summitwas entirely around.
We had groups of CSOs sittingdown with one another just
walking through.
These are the different ways weevaluate what we're producing.

(32:52):
The ROI on the investmentswe're making in sustainability.
Is it measured in increasedrevenue?
Is it measured in decreasedcosts?
Is it measured more broadly,just in lower risk, when it
comes to litigation risk, whenit comes to insurance risk?
Those are the ways to measurethe outputs of these programs

(33:13):
and we've had to come up with alot of those KPIs over time, but
over the last few years I thinkthe best sustainability
programs have produced thoseKPIs and CFOs have signed off on
them because they can see thevalue that's coming from
increased revenues, decreasedcosts and lower risks.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Great that you bring up CFOs, because I had a
question about ESG in theC-suite.
So in the past, anythingrelated to ESG in a company used
to be something delegated tothe sustainability team or the
head of IR, but more and more Ihave the feeling that you know
these type of matters arelanding in the desks of CEOs,

(33:55):
cfos and general counsel.
So the question is how is thetone around ESG changing inside
the C-suite of listed companies?
What are you seeing?

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, again, I think the concept of green hushing has
been in the public for a coupleof years.
Companies have to be a lot morecareful about what they say in
public.
Obviously, we're in the US.
Sec will require you.
If you have something materialthat infects an investment
decision, you have to discloseit.
It needs to be distributedbroadly with Reg, fd, et cetera.

(34:27):
But a general counsel is goingto spend a little bit more time
these days on what a company issaying out in the public domain.
Sometimes that's just simplyfor protection of the company.
For greenwashing concerns, ifyou're doing something and you
have to be able to stand behindwhat you're doing if there's any
questions about whether you'remaking statements that could be
seen as greenwashing.
Beyond that again, so many moreof these decisions are

(34:52):
financially related.
We've got my parent companywithin ICE has a program we're
working on around standardizingthe methodology for avoided
emissions.
We're working with a group ofother investors as well as other
providers out there andessentially, if you can say to a
customer, this service or thisproduct that I provide helps you

(35:14):
avoid X amount of carbonemissions that starts to become
as carbon becomes priced acrossthe globe.
Cban starts to kick in nextyear, where you'll have payments
based in certain industries onproducts that cross into the EU.
If that one ton of carbon thatyou save someone from your
product is going to cost you 80euros, then you've got something

(35:36):
that goes directly into apurchasing decision as well.
So that's.
The other thing is more andmore CEOs and CFOs need to be
able to speak in these terms andto think about how
sustainability programs directlyadd value to the bottom line as
part of their decision making.
But yeah, in general, you'reright on the headlines that

(35:56):
you've just got to be morecareful about what you say Broad
terminology, something thatmight look like a more
moralistic statement versus abusiness-related statement.
You just have to be carefulabout what you're saying there,
and I think companies arelooking at their communications
as well.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
I want to keep asking a question on management and
how companies are navigating allthis ESG complexity, because I
have the feeling that thelandscape is incredibly broad.
I mean, we saw it in the numberof services that you are
offering in the NYC Forcompanies.
I feel that they have a bigchallenge in terms of

(36:37):
prioritization because there'sso many open fronts I guess you
have, you know, governance,biodiversity, climate, dei.
I mean there's many, manydifferent variables and, from
your perspective, how arecompanies deciding what's
material and what to focus onand whatnot, especially when
there's so much noise in thespace right now?

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, the requirement around a materiality assessment
, around a prioritizationexercise.
Csrd would require that doublemateriality assessment where you
reach out, communicate witheach of your stakeholder groups,
take in information from thosegroups and determine what are
the most important issues foryour company.
That exercise becomesincreasingly important in a

(37:34):
world where you may be asked insome cases by a stakeholder
group to spend a lot of time,effort and expense on your 16th
most important issue.
That's really the place where amateriality assessment and
making sure you've done that ina standardized format is
something that a board canrespond to or a management team
can respond to and say I have aclear statement from my
stakeholders that that 16th mostimportant issue is a lot less
important than the places we arefocusing on today.
The materiality assessmentbecomes both an offensive and a

(37:58):
defensive exercise in some sense.
Where should I be puttingattention and time?
Where should I not be puttingattention and time?
And a good board thatunderstands oversight really
should be looking at thatmateriality assessment and
making sure that management isspending its time on the things
that matter the most to thecompany.
That's really what it comesdown to for materiality.

(38:21):
There should be a constant flowof information from each of
those stakeholder groups is tohave everyone who's responsible
for communication with astakeholder group all talking to
one another at the same time,all having ongoing communication
, because anything you do thatchanges your view to one
stakeholder group, it's going tochange the view to the others

(38:41):
as well.
Most companies have that groupmeeting consistently and also
reporting to management,reporting from there to the
board.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And talking about offense and defense, and also
reporting to management,reporting from there to the
board.
And talking about offense anddefense, how are the New York
Stock?

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Exchange listed companies.
Thinking about the balancebetween voluntary ESG efforts
and compliance-driven reporting?
Yeah, again, if you're going tomeet compliance, I think the
CSRD on the bus.
We're not sure what that'sgoing to look like in the long
run, but if you are required tocomply with that, there's a lot
of work that goes into it.
A lot of companies have spenttime simply preparing for that
process, especially when itcomes to audit requirements to

(39:28):
go through and standardizeeverything that they're doing.
Requirements to go through andstandardize everything that
they're doing.
If that turns out not to be,some of those companies may not
be in scope in the long run.
That still means they've gonethrough the exercise of
standardization and then they'reable to potentially meet other
mandatory requirements that comeup.
There's all types of sourcesfor mandatory requirements that
can come, as mentioned, at stateor at provincial level.

(39:50):
In New York City we have LocalLaw 97 that regulates buildings,
regulates facilities, includingthe New York Stock Exchange
building that I'm sitting in.
So there's lots of differentthings to keep in touch with and
keep track of when it comes tomandatory requirements out there
.
That could be a full-time jobin itself, just simply keeping
track of all the legislation,all the regulation and all the

(40:13):
various consults and commentperiods.
One other thing I'll say I spenda fair amount of time with my
sustainability leaders talkingto private standard setters.
Very often a private standardsetter is referenced in some of
the communications out there.
Ghg Protocol has been aroundfor 20 years.
The communications out thereGHG protocol has been around for

(40:34):
20 years.
It's going through a consultprocess right now around the
definitions of how should wemeasure scope two emissions.
How should we measure scopethree emissions?
We like to get ourpractitioners, our listed
company sustainability leads,involved in those as much as
possible, just to make suretheir voices are heard and also
that they can share what they'vedone to meet those needs.

(40:54):
Sometimes it's not even alwaysa regulator, Sometimes it's a
private standard setter thatwill have a consult out there
that our companies maybe want tobe involved in as well.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So maybe to wrap up this section about companies,
I'd love to hear if you couldgive one piece of ESG advice to
a company preparing its nextearnings call or investors day.
What would it be?
And I know that the question isa little bit broad, but I made
it on purpose.
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely

(41:29):
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table, or maybe you know someone with
a story worth telling.
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show what's, uh, earnings calls?

Speaker 1 (41:54):
um, you should only be talking about things that are
very material to the businesson a quarterly earnings call.
The reality is mostsustainability programs are not
geared to a quarterly reportingcycle.
Um, and we talked earlier aboutsome of the programs that are
helping grow revenue inbusinesses and cut costs in
businesses uh, if it's material,yeah, you probably should be
talking about it on an earningscall.

(42:15):
But, but ESG, for its own sake,on an earnings call, I think
we've probably gone through thatover the last few years and we
don't see as much focus on that.
Simply based on the differencein time horizons.
It's a big difference in, forexample, a transition plan to
net zero by 2050, relative to aquarterly earnings, where you
have a sell-side analystcommunity that cares about what

(42:38):
does the trade look like for thenext three, six, 12 months.
From an investor day perspective, this is where I do see a lot
more sustainability officersinvolved on the podium walking
through the programs thatthey're working on from an
investor perspective.
Again, that sits solidly infiduciary duty.
It sits solidly in where are wefocusing on?

(42:58):
What have investors and therest of our stakeholders told us
to work on and making sure thatthe analyst community
understands what that means.
Large investors have made a lotof progress on ESG integration.
It varies among industries.
If you're covering a utility,for example a power producer,

(43:20):
they understand climate verywell.
They understand physical riskvery well.
If you're in that space, youranalyst community is probably
going to understand everythingyou're talking about, depending
on the industry biotech, forwhat I mentioned earlier there
may be a little longer educationprocess for some industries
into understanding the keyinputs to your sustainability

(43:43):
program, what it's producing forthe company.
So I see that in all types ofdifferent formats.
But I'd say that it's morecommon to have companies
involved in the analyst dayprograms with a sustainability
lead.
But it's still.
It's a piece of the overallpuzzle.
But it's not going to besomething that's looking to

(44:04):
drive an investment decision inseconds, minutes, days, hours,
et cetera.
After an analyst day it becomesa piece of the overall puzzle.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Thank you for that.
Now I'd like to take more of atop-down approach and talk about
the state of ESG in general.
Today.
You talked a little bit aboutdata before.
We're seeing more and more dataproviders coming out and
sometimes I have the feelingthat companies and investors are
drowning in ESG data becausethere's so much information

(44:38):
flying around.
Do you feel that we arestarting to see people getting a
bit tired of this informationoverdose and are we seeing a
less is more moment in ESG data,or do you think this is just
the beginning and we still havea lot of path to cover and needs
also to cover?

Speaker 1 (45:04):
I'm going to say the exact opposite, but in a
specific way.
Investors are for regulatorypurposes.
When you put down in yourprospectus this is our approach
to running a sustainable fund,or to meet an asset manager's
needs around climate transition,for example, you need to be

(45:24):
much more specific about yourmethodology, what you're using,
what inputs you're putting ontop of it, how you come up with
your own materiality map, etc.
Your own materiality map, etcetera.
I find investors using less andless outside opinions, adding
more of their own opinions ontop of data that comes from the

(45:45):
outside sources.
So any piece of data that goesinto an investor, if it's got an
opinion baked into it, if ithas an analyst opinion or any
other type of assumption,investors need to understand
that assumption and possiblethey may not agree with it and
want the provider to calculateit in a completely different way
or just simply send the rawdata in and do the calculation

(46:06):
themselves.
Every investor is taking inmultiple data sources.
Sometimes you need that forcoverage purposes.
Sometimes one provider coversall your emerging markets.
Sometimes one provider can onlycover equities but not cover
the rest of your asset classes.
So you've got a lot ofdifferent data sources you have
to take in and identifydifferences, handle corporate

(46:26):
actions, all those kind ofthings.
But what you're generallygetting to is investors coming
up with their own opinions andreplacing the opinions of
outside sources more, becausethey want control of that
process and they can choose howthey're going to follow the
mandate of client X as opposedto a more broad view for a

(46:48):
rating.
I think that's generally.
You hear from investors thatthe top level rating does not
matter as much to them thesedays as the data that's coming
in and, in some cases, theresearch that might bring up
issues that an analyst, abuy-side analyst, has not
thought of previously.
That's the difference that Isee today.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
So companies are beefing up their teams pretty
much and using internalresources with all of these
external data to create theperfect output.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
It's more because integration has been fairly
effective.
A lot of this started off withyou'd have a small team of ESG
research leads inside a firm.
They would then consult witheach of the line analysts that
are responsible for thefundamental analysis.
At the best investors, you canalready bring up those topics
with a line fundamental analystlike I said with the utility
space, and they'll know exactlywhat they need.

(47:40):
The ones working on evaluatingeach security have gotten a lot
smarter about how to use all thedata that's on their desk that
are brought in by those teamstoday.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Interesting.
Another big topic.
Obviously, data is a huge one,but another one is regulation,
and I have the feeling thatthere's different regulatory
directions across differentregions and continents.
Obviously, and as such, theidea of global ESG standards,

(48:28):
which, of course, we've beentalking a lot for the last
decade, feels increasingly outof reach.
How are companies and investorsnavigating these fragmented ESG
landscape?
What are you seeing?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
So let's take it separately.
Investors we talked about itbefore.
It's ISSB.
The investor community hasreally solidified as you talk to
investors because it's builtfor financial materiality.
The accounting profession hassupported this to start with.
Investors are increasinglylooking for companies to report

(49:03):
ISSB, also talking to regulatorsabout supporting that one
standard.
The more everyone's on a singlestandard, the better from their
perspective.
For companies, issb is stillrelatively new.
It hasn't been a hard and fastrequirement yet.
Like I mentioned for Brazil,that's coming.
There's other countries on theway, but it's still going to
take time for all the localregulators to get involved there

(49:24):
in order to add thoserequirements.
What that does is it stillleaves a lot of those in the
alphabet soup of differentrequirements.
I think that what comes up herein this we mentioned with you on
the bus is just uncertainty.
If you're going to publish aregulation, don't change the
regulation a year, two years,three years, consistently after

(49:45):
that.
Companies and investors aremaking decisions for the long
run and that type of variabilityon what's going to be a
requirement or not makes it verydifficult for companies to plan
.
Honestly, I hope we get throughthe omnibus process and get to
clarity about what CSRD, whatCSDD, what all of those will
mean for organizations.
And then, just broadly, thereseems to be a split in the

(50:13):
standards discussion betweenfinancial materiality or single
materiality versus a doublemateriality approach.
Gri has already set globalreporting initiative.
They'll have an agreement withISSB to share information.
But GRI is going to retain itsdouble materiality approach.
And then each regulator has todetermine do I want to still
push companies, push investors,to think in double materiality

(50:34):
terms or single materialityterms?
So I think there will probablyalways be that cleave between
the two.
It depends how the evolutionworks.
But from an investorperspective, issb has become the
hope to get as many investeeson the same page as possible to

(50:55):
get as many investees on thesame page as possible.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
And how are smaller or small or smaller companies
dealing with all of this?
Because, I mean, there'sobviously a lot to do and large
firms have like unlimitedresources, it seems.
But then there's like, there'sthe smaller public companies
that could struggle to keep up,like, first of all, like, what
are you doing at the NYC tosupport, like, small and
mid-sized companies?

(51:19):
And, more generally speaking,like, are smaller companies
doomed and are they going tofail inevitably in meeting with
all this evolving landscape?
Or not necessarily, becausethey're just going to become
more efficient than largerinstitutions and they will
manage?

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Doomed might be a little bit far, but regulators
have been in a lot of cases andthis did show up in Omnibus.
In a lot of cases regulatorshave built in carve-outs for
smaller companies that are notgoing to have those kind of
resources.
I know that showed up in theCSDD portion of Omnibus to put a

(51:59):
minimum employee number on theemployees that would be required
for a business that has CSDDrequirements or requirements as
a supplier down to theircustomers.
I was at an event last year inToronto Our friends at the
Toronto Stock Exchange.
A lot of companies are actuallylisted on both exchanges so we

(52:19):
know them well.
Toronto has a lot of very smallcompanies listed on TSX Venture,
for example, and a lot of theprogram at that session just
dealt with making sureregulations fit for purpose.
I do hear stories from somemuch smaller companies that have
regulatory requirements placedon them.
For example, the Californiaclimate requirements only apply

(52:41):
depending on the requirement tocompanies either at $500 million
a year in revenue from in myspace.
I'm most interested in havingthe investor community as a
whole and we want to make surethat capital formation is never
a concern when it comes toregulation here.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
So there's hope and they're not doomed.
If you work in one of thosecompanies, rest assured it's
okay.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
With those smaller companies.
A lot of the sustainabilitywork they do is just simply, if
they're a supplier to a muchlarger customer, they'll need to
go through whatever evaluationthey need to meet the customer's
needs, and I think that's wherea lot of the work I see inside
smaller companies.
You mentioned procurementearlier, but sometimes with a

(53:49):
smaller company, most of thework is actually done at the
procurement level.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Most of the work is actually done at the procurement
level.
So one of the things I want todo with this podcast is advocate
for the finance profession andalso give color for future
generations on what it really isto be working in the sector and
how they can prepare to besuccessful.
So I'd like to transition now,maybe, to the last part of the

(54:13):
conversation, where we talkabout ESG professionals in
general.
So my first question for you,for anyone aspiring to be the
next, brian Matt what do youthink are the most important
skills the future ESGprofessionals will need over the

(54:35):
next few years?

Speaker 1 (54:40):
We're in a space with sustainability where we're
trying to build the plane whilewe're flying it.
We've got some tight deadlineswhen it comes to making sure we
can measure climate and measureclimate risk and hopefully be
able to allocate capital basedon that.
Flexibility is kind of core tothis but, honestly, salesmanship

(55:02):
is what keeps coming up when Italk to sustainability officers.
A lot of those roles didn'texist a few years ago.
They've needed to as they joincompanies, introduce themselves
to their sales teams, to theirCFO, to their controllership, to
their legal, to every otherpart of the company, and be able
to get them all telling thesame exact message.

(55:22):
Some part of that is simplysalesmanship.
It's the ability to build thoserelationships.
My dad told me once upon a timeyou can get paid for what you do
, for what you know and for whoyou know, and increasingly it
becomes a who you know andincreasingly it becomes a who
you know issue when it comes toworking in large corporations,
because you're simply justtrying to build trust all the

(55:44):
way across the process Forinvestors to be involved in this
space investors, again, there'sa lot of new tools out there
the CFA program, I think, theoriginal CFA UK certificate that
was published a few years backis now a global certificate.
Except they've had to change alot of the curriculum because

(56:05):
it's advancing so quickly.
There's so many changes to it.
It's simply read a lot, talk toyour peers a lot.
It comes down to thatnetworking function where nobody
can keep up with all thepossible changes going on here
regulation, legislation,everything that's happening in
the private space.

(56:25):
Network with your peers a lot.
Stay close to them because youlearn a lot from them.
That's the best part when itcomes to working for NYSE is I
get access here to the expertsin sustainability in every
industry.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
You know pretty much everyone, I guess by now.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
I'm the dumbest person in the room a lot of the
time here when it comes tosustainability experts, and
that's great.
The fact that we can make thoseconnections for newer companies
that are just coming onto theexchange is really valuable for
us.
It means that we can tap into alot of the best skill sets
across the globe.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
So salesmanship and getting your technicals right.
There's one word I was hopingyou'd say, but you didn't, and
I'm curious to hear yourthoughts on it, which is
storytelling.
What role does storytellingplay in the ESG world?

Speaker 1 (57:14):
That's salesmanship.
To me, that's one and the same.
It's.
What are you doing in the ESGworld?
No, that's salesmanship.
To me, that's one and the same.
It's what are you doing in thesustainability world and how do
you tell the story of itbecoming?
Increased revenue, decreasedcosts, lower risk?
Those are the kind of thingsthat translate well when you're
talking to someone that you'venever met before across the
organization but in businessalways thinks in those terms,

(57:37):
becomes a really easy talkingpoint.
When you're looking at loweringemissions in your business but
also, in the same process,lowering your energy costs, very
easy to talk to a facilitiesmanager about that, as well as a
CFO.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
So we focused a lot on the possibilities of you know
, on the future and, because ofyou know, this backlash that we

(58:18):
were talking about before, andso on and so forth.
And I guess, like some ESGprofessionals, are feeling the
heat.
Are you hearing from what yousee in your day to day?
Are you hearing about burnoutor frustration from ESG
professionals, or not at all, oris it just like rainbows and

(58:40):
happiness?

Speaker 1 (58:40):
all across the board.
It actually had two N's in it.
There's not a lot that doesn'tfit into global head of strategy
and innovation Point beingdefine your role specifically.
Sustainability leads if there'ssomething that is being done by

(59:13):
someone else really falls intothe legal aspect or the
facilities aspect or the salesaspect.
As you're building thoserelationships, make sure to
define the roles as closely asyou can.
Make sure you understand whatis your role in sustainability
relative to what's really otherfolks' roles and where does
comparative advantage exist ineach of those.
I always hear sustainabilityprofessionals say my goal in the
long run is to be able to walkaway, retire and have all of my

(59:34):
knowledge spread across each ofthe operational heads that face
each of our stakeholders and dothe work.
There's always an educationaspect to that too, but the best
way to avoid burnout is cleardefinitions of what you're doing
in the sustainability worldWithin investors probably
similar it's.
Know what is the responsibilityof your RI team, of your

(59:57):
stewardship team and of the lineanalysts who are responsible
for the opinion, as well asportfolio managers who are
responsible for the decision.
Try to have that as clarifiedas possible with an investment
firm.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
We're getting close to the end of the conversation.
A couple last questions to wrapup the episode.
I have a bit of a broad onehere, but what's one thing that
you'd like to see shift in?
How we think about ESG, whetherfrom companies, from investors
or the media in general?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
You could take a few different directions to that.
I think we use a lot of jargon.
We use a lot of acronyms um,we've got a for our summit.
Uh, next week.
We've got a communications leadthat, uh, really walks
companies through how to get ridof that jargon.
Um, maybe for a while it wasgood to show that we were making

(01:00:57):
advance in the space.
We have all these new tools Inorder to communicate with the
rest of the world.
We have to get rid of theacronyms, we have to get rid of
the jargon.
We've got to be very specificabout what we're doing.
There's some great research outthere about just the way you
present something that leads tosupport, either from a customer,
from an investor, from anyoneelse you're supporting.

(01:01:18):
And I need to do it myself aswell as everyone else Mean what
you say, say what you mean anddefinitely avoid the jargon,
because the jargon createsconfusion and sometimes just a
lack of trust.
If you're talking about carbonemissions, say carbon emissions.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Be very specific about what you're looking to
accomplish, and that specificitytakes away questions about your
motivation for doing something,whether it's just a personal
need versus something that iscreating value for the company

(01:01:59):
value for the company and maybeto end up on a positive note, so
there's been obviously a lot ofnoise, as we said, on the ESG
space, but many professionalsstill believe in ESG's long-term
value.
So, despite everything going on, what still gives you hope or
optimism about the future of ESGand responsible investing?

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Some of it is just simply hearing from asset owners
.
As you talk to the asset ownercommunity, the asset owner
community is not shrinking.
The asset owner community isadding some of the same tools
that asset managers are as wellto look across the various asset
classes in their portfolios.
That requirement to be able tomeasure the systemic views of

(01:02:37):
their investments is working itsway from large asset owners
into asset managers and theninto the investees of those
asset managers.
I hear consistently frominvestors that there's still
growing demand from asset ownersto do better evaluation in the

(01:02:57):
space, a more complete view ofinvestments.
To me, this has always beendriven to start with by the
asset owner community, whetherit's a large pension fund,
whether it's the next generationof wealth that's coming up in
Gen X and beyond, intomillennials, into, I guess it's.
You know, Gen A is the next onethat we're talking about, but

(01:03:19):
as you start to have newerindividuals making and inserting
values into investmentdecisions as well, there's no
signs of that slowing down, andI think that always shows if
you're following Fiduciary or ifyou're following the capital.
Everyone's going to need to domore to meet the demands of
those asset owners, whoever theymay be.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
That's a fantastic way to wrap up this conversation
, Brian.
It's been absolutely amazing tohave you on the show question.
For those of you who want todive deeper into what you're
doing, what you're seeing acrossthe NYC companies and the ESG
space in general, where can theyfind more about you and your

(01:04:03):
work and insights?

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
NYC sustainability resources is the main site.
Also, Ice Climate Simply Googlethat and you'll find everything
that we're doing in the climatespace.
You can also follow either Iceor NYC on social.
Find me on LinkedIn as well.
You'll see all the things thatwe're doing in the climate space
.
You can also follow either ICEor NYSE on social.
Find me on LinkedIn as well.
You'll see all the things thatwe're doing around companies.
Again, great to create moreconnections, create more
community and expand theknowledge, like we're talking

(01:04:27):
about in this space too.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Thank you so much, brian.
This has been a reallythoughtful and grounded
conversation.
Thanks so much for sharing yourperspective and your experience
with us, and I guess I'll seeyou in Chicago, likewise Looking
forward to it.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and

(01:04:51):
production comes straight frommy desk and occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listening, and join me in the next
episode of the Blunt Dollar formore raw, honest finance
conversations.