Jeremy Nicholls from UN’s Development Programme and Natural Capital Research’s Beccy Wilebore spoke about avoiding the greenwash to locate the best source of capital.
One of the panels on the second day of the GCV Symposium 2021 dealt with the issue of avoiding greenwashing in cleantech, moderated by Amy Comer, a partner at law firm Faegre Drinker.
The session featured speakers Shiva Dustdar, head of Innovation Finance Advisory at the European Investment Bank; Jeremy Nicholls, lead of the SDG Impact Assurance Framework of United Nations Development Programme; and Beccy Wilebore, head of research at cleantech data company Natural Capital Research.
Dustdar spoke of the role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) like the EIB in “crossing borders”. She said their role included channelling capital to sound projects where it is most needed: “We have market failures because very high risk or cross-border complexities where MDBs can play an important role in connecting regions and investors.
“It is also our role to help develop new markets and market opportunities, paving the way to mobilise private capital down the line.” She also stressed that EIB’s role included developing new financial products and risk, sharing schemes, having been a pioneer in green bonds and loans.
Dustdar pointed out the EIB is currently working on projects related to the hydrogen space: “We are going to look at it very holistically and how EIB can help develop the hydrogen economy.” She noted GCV and McKinsey had helped the EIB with consulting work on the matter.
As for greenwashing issues, Wilebore commented that there is a bigger threat than climate change – the collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity. “There is a very narrow focus on just climate,” she noted. “We need to have a framework on how to evaluate a company within a broad range of metrics. If you have high quality and comparable data, it facilitates the process.”
Nicholls agreed and said there was a number of organisations that are unaware of what impact they are exerting on other matter such as biodiversity, water quality and inequality. He expressed his amazement as to why no auditing requirements and standards have been established yet for impact like they have been in accounting: “We live in a world where somebody is auditing financial statement but…if you do not have it in measuring impact, you are in marketing not really in sustainability.”
Wilebore and Nicholls also touched on challenges related to properly measuring environmental impact. Wilebore said: “There is still a lack of data. You may feel you are doing the right thing, but you may be looking at the wrong metrics and wrong data.” She also said that “impact investing is about outcome not about effort.”
Nicholls added: “If you are trying to change an outcome and you do not have proper metrics, it will not be very useful for decision making. It is not a progression to sustainability. It is avoiding a catastrophe. It is that sense of urgency which must drive it.” He opined that auditing requirements on impact needed to be legislated and imposed worldwide.
