Sustainable Finance Foundation Course University of Oxford

Welcome to the Sustainable Finance Foundation Course Aligning finance with sustainability is a necessary condition for tackling the environmental challenges facing humanity. It is also necessary for financial institutions (and policymakers and regulators) to manage environment-related risks, as well as capture opportunities associated with the transition to global environmental sustainability. The Sustainable Finance Foundation Course (SFFC) was launched in 2016 and is the premier short-course on sustainable finance globally. We aim to attract the best and brightest current and future leaders and deliver a unique experience that equips participants with the knowledge and networks required to undertake significant future work on sustainable finance. The course is centred around a five-day residential workshop held at the University of Oxford. The course has been designed and developed by the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme as an introduction to sustainable finance for professionals working in a range of sectors, for example: executives working in financial institutions that need to understand how sustainability, the environment, and climate change relates to finance and investment; civil servants, regulators, and central bankers working to develop policies that can foster the development of sustainable finance; staff at environmental NGOs who would like to help the global financial system create better environmental outcomes; philanthropic funders looking to navigate sustainable finance topics so as to support the most impactful activities; and trustees or company directors that want to understand how sustainable finance relates to their fiduciary duties. Participants will engage critically with systems and theories in sustainable finance and investment such as: active ownership, the carbon bubble, climate finance, conservation finance, disclosure, divestment, engagement, ESG, green banks, green bonds, green benchmarks and indices, impact investing, public private partnerships, reporting, responsible investment, stranded assets, and green taxonomies. The SFFC is the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme’s flagship executive course. Participants will become part of our growing alumni community and receive invitations to our events and conferences. All alumni also receive a 15% discount on all other Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme open enrolment executive courses.

Dr Ben Caldecott Founding Director, Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme & Associate Professor Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment University of Oxford

The Oxford Residential The residential workshop is held over five consecutive days at the University of Oxford. Through the course participants will:

• Develop a foundational knowledge in the emerging theories and practice of sustainable finance and investment.

• Become confident in navigating and critically analysing the key aspects and developments in sustainable finance, as well as how to engage with different financial sector stakeholders for collaboration.

• Study how different policies, regulations and supervisory expectations related to sustainable finance are evolving in different jurisdictions, their direction of travel, and opportunities for influence.

• Become part of a global network of like-minded professionals that are approaching sustainable finance from different angles and professional perspectives.

• Learn from, challenge, and engage in conversation with leading Oxford faculty and expert practitioners who blend research with experience. Cutting edge theory on sustainable finance and investment will be examined using a combination of real world case-studies, presentations, and Oxford Union-styled debates.

• Embark on the unique 'Oxford experience' and explore first-hand the richness that the city has to offer including candlelit college dinners and the opportunity to immerse themselves in one of the global homes of education.

Our courses are designed to equip participants with essential foundational knowledge of core principles and concepts in sustainable finance, as well as an advanced understanding of the very latest developments. They are the ideal preparation for current and emerging professional examinations in sustainable finance and related areas.

Participant Profiles Through the course participants will form a network of senior practitioners working at the intersection of finance and sustainability. Across 2017, 2018, and 2019 the course has averaged 41 participants on each iteration, with 52% female representation and attendees from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The word cloud below illustrates the job titles of previous attendees: These individuals have joined the course from organisations including:

Deutsche Bank CDP European Climate Foundation

Credit Suisse United Nations Bank of China Christian Aid CDP HSBC

Bank of England WWF GIZ Levis Strauss & Co. Japan Research Institute EDF

Deloitte BEIS J. Safra Sarasin Group Previous participants have joined the course from organisations including:

HSBC Merrill Lynch EDF Credit Suisse United Nations Deloitte Levis Strauss & Co. Friends of the Earth Pensions Regulator WWF GIZ House of Commons Morgan Stanley Korea Development Bank McConnell Foundation EY Lloyds Bank United Nations ClientEarth Hitachi

Central Bank of Brazil Ceres

AXA S&P Global

Course Directors

Dr Ben Caldecott is the founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme. He is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the

University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, a Visiting Researcher at The Alan Turing Institute, and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. Ben is also a Senior Advisor to the Chair and CEO of the UK Green Finance Institute and a Policy Associate at the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where he is a Director-level secondee in the Strategy Directorate providing advice on a range of policy issues, many of which are related to finance, investment, and market design. He has conceived and initiated a number of initiatives related to sustainable finance. Ben founded and co-chairs the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI), an alliance of global research universities promoting rigorous and impactful academic research on sustainable finance. He established and leads the Sustainable Finance Theme at The Alan Turing Institute and initiated the Spatial Finance Initiative, which aims to mainstream geospatial capabilities

enabled by space technology and data science into financial decision-making globally. He co-founded the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI), which is examining the legal basis for directors and trustees to consider, manage, and report on climate change-related risk, and the circumstances in which they may be liable for failing to do so.

Dr Caitlin McElroy is a Departmental Research Lecturer and Director of Executive Education Programmes at the Smith School of

Enterprise and the Environment. Her research has revolved around the interactions between the mining industry, environment, and development. She is currently developing a programme: Sharing Resource Prosperity that explores the improved environmental sustainability and development of resource driven economies. Her first degree is from the University of Pennsylvania in History and Environmental Studies (Hons) followed by an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy (Dist) from the University of Oxford. She holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford in Economic Geography.

Previous Speakers

• Jane Ambachtsheer, Partner and Global Head of Responsible Investment, Mercer Investments

• Mark Zinkula, CEO, Legal & General Investment Management

• Emma Howard Boyd, Chair, Environment Agency

• Sir Martin Smith, Founder, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford

• Catherine Howarth, Chief Executive, ShareAction

• Shaun Kingsbury CBE, Former CEO - UK Green Investment Bank

• Michael Wilkins, Managing Director - Sustainable Finance, S&P Global Ratings and Member, TCFD

Content

Day I – Principles and Key Concepts

• Origins and Purpose of Finance

• Key Concepts and Instruments: From Bonds to Balance Sheets

• The Financial System and the Investment Chain

• Public Policy and Sustainable Finance: The Role of Government

Day II – Investing in Sustainability

• A Question of Class? Asset Classes and Sustainability

• Investing in Clean Energy

• Case Study: Clean Energy Investment in Practice

• Investing in Nature

• Case Study: Investing in Nature in Practice

Day III – Greening the Financial System

• Stranded Assets

• Case Study: Climate Change, Central Banks, and Financial Regulation

• Tracking Error? The Role of Indices and Benchmarks in Shaping Sustainable Finance

• Case Study: Climate-aligned Benchmarks in Practice

• The Divestment-Engagement Continuum and the Levers Investors Have to Shape Corporate Decision-Making

• Case Study: Using the Power of the Law

Day IV –Oxford Union Debates

• Oxford Union Debates

Day V – Impact and Capstone

• Sustainability, Impact and Impact Measurement

• Case Study: Measuring Impact in Practice

• Capstone Project Design, Peer Review and Objectives

Capstone Projects Over the subsequent six months after the residential participants will engage in an extended learning exercise implementing a project related to finance and sustainability. It is intended to demonstrate application and growth from course learning. The capstone project will need to be related to sustainable finance. It can be a personal project, a project as part of your job, a campaign, a commercial venture, a research project, or something else. The Course Directors will help you along the way, for example, by providing feedback and introductions to people that might be able to help. You will also be supported by the network of peers from your cohort. Examples of projects include:

• An investment case or business model to present to an investment institution;

• An advocacy campaign or strategy to leverage the influence of markets and finance for environmental benefit;

• Or a substantive alternative project of relevance to the participant's work (subject to faculty approval).

Fees The course fee is £5,000 for attendees from the private sector, and £3,750 for attendees from the public sector and civil society. For both of these sectors the course fee includes all teaching costs, accommodation, breakfast, lunch and several dinners. It does not include the cost of travel to and from Oxford, visas, or any personal expenses you may incur.

Accommodation Accommodation will be provided at an Oxford College for five nights, and all bedrooms will be single en-suites. Extensions to accommodation are available on request, but dependent on availability.

Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme The Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment is a multidisciplinary research centre working to be the world's best place for research and teaching on sustainable finance and investment. We were established in 2012 to align the theory and practice of finance and investment with global environmental sustainability. We research environment-related risks, impacts, and opportunities across different sectors, geographies, and asset classes; how such factors are emerging and how they positively or negatively affect asset values; how they might be interrelated or correlated; their materiality (in terms of scale, impact, timing, and likelihood); who will be affected; and what affected groups can do to pre-emptively manage risk. Since our inception we have conducted pioneering research on stranded assets and continue to undertake significant research on the topic. The production of high-quality research on the materiality of environment-related factors is a necessary, though insufficient, condition for these factors to be successfully integrated into decision-making. Consequently, we develop the data, analytics, frameworks, and models required to enable the integration of this information. We are pioneers and advocates of 'spatial finance', a term we have coined that refers to efforts to bring geo-spatial capabilities into financial analysis. As such we are developing new asset-level datasets through data science and combining these with new approaches to spatial analysis, scenarios, and stress tests. We also research barriers to the adoption of practices related to sustainable finance and investment. This includes the role of governance, norms, behaviour, and cognition, as well as policy and financial regulation in shaping investment decisions and capital allocation. The Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme is based in a world leading university with a global reach and reputation. We work with leading practitioners from across the investment chain (including actuaries, asset owners, asset managers, accountants, banks, data providers, investment consultants, lawyers, ratings agencies, stock exchanges), with firms and their management, and with experts from a wide range of related subject areas (including finance, economics, management, geography, data science, anthropology, climate science, law, area studies, psychology) within the University of Oxford and beyond. The Global Sustainable Finance Advisory Council that guides our work contains many of the key individuals and organisations working on sustainable finance. The Council also has a role in helping to informally co-ordinate and share information on sustainable finance and stranded assets work internationally. The Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme's founding Director is Dr Ben Caldecott.

Previous Feedback “I loved the course. The combination of content, fellow participants and location made for a stimulating week.” “With limited background in either finance or sustainability this was a great and comprehensive introduction. The setting and organisation was perfect as well!” “I go back with a lot of food for thought, an enhanced network and a handful of interesting ideas to think about. Thank you for making it possible.” “I absolutely loved this course. It covered all the key issues I wanted to learn about, and we had a range of perspectives.” “Excellent course, the material was diverse and interesting. I gained several new ideas to take home with me and implement in my work. Networking is fantastic.” “I really loved this course – and I feel like I could have stayed another week.” “My key learning has been in terms of my own reflections of how I would want my career to take shape and this course and people have helped me a great deal.” “I really, really enjoyed this course. It was worth the value – 100%. Thank you!” “Thank you for such a formative and motivational course. I have enjoyed the opportunity to engage with professionals and Oxford academics to consolidate my professional development in this exciting area. I feel that I now have all the tools required to catalyse this development, exciting!”

Applications Applicants will be expected to demonstrate their suitability for the course in terms of:

• The relevance of the course to their occupation and organisation

• Their experience and potential, particularly in areas related to course content

• Their initial objectives for learning and their intentions for their capstone project

Further Information W: https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/courses/sffc/ E: sffc@smithschool.ox.ac.uk T: +44 (0)1865 614942