Frankfurt, 6 December 2021
The EFFAS Commission on Environment, Social and Governance (CESG) Annual Conference went ahead successfully this year in a hybrid format due to the COVID-19 restrictions in force in Germany. The Conference was kindly hosted by DVFA at the DVFA Center in Frankfurt and hosted online by EFFAS. The limited number of people able to attend the event in person were joined by around 150 attendees who accessed the event online via the webinar. The speakers and discussion panels covered current hot topics in ESG. For those unable to attend the event on the day the expert opinions shared with attendees are now available to watch by clicking on the different links in this article.
The Conference Opening Remarks were from Fritz Mostböck, Head of Group Research and Chief Analyst of Erste Group Bank AG, and Deputy of the EFFAS Executive Management Committee and Frank Klein, Senior Coverage Specialist, Client Coverage Division at DWS, board member DVFA and Co-chair of the EFFAS CESG. View here.
EFFAS was honoured to have Patrick de Cambourg, member of the EFRAG Board, Chair of the Project Task Force on preparatory work for the elaboration of possible EU non-financial reporting standards as the Keynote speaker who shared his experience on the State of the art on Sustainability reporting standards. View the keynote here.
Ruben Feldman, MD, ESG Strategy & Business Development at Swisscanto Invest shared his views on the Implementation of climate goals and strategies in asset management which can be viewed here.
The Taxonomy contribution to ESG in Europe was addressed by Jose Luis Blasco, Global Director of Sustainability at Acciona S.A. and member of the EFFAS Commission on ESG (CESG). His talk can be viewed here.
The Corporate reporting and disclosure panel was made up from Andrea Gasperini, Head of Sustainability and ESG Observatory at AIAF and member of the EFFAS CESG and EFFAS ESG Review Panel (whose presentation is available here), Isabelle Grauer-Gaynor, Corporate Finance and Reporting Team Leader at ESMA (see photo), and Dr Carsten Zielke, Zielke Research Consult GmbH, member of the PTF to operate the project on preparatory work for the elaboration of possible EU non-financial reporting standards, mandated to EFRAG by the European Commission, member EFFAS Commission on Financial Reporting. The discussion was moderated by Jose Luis Blasco, Global Director of Sustainability at Acciona S.A. and member of the EFFAS Commission on ESG (CESG). The panel discussion is available to view here.
Following the break for lunch the first topic was ESG and SAA for multi asset strategies presented by Dr. Gunnar Friede, CIIA, CEFA, DWS Investment GmbH, Senior Portfolio Manager, Head of ESG, Multi Asset & Solutions, leader of DVFA Commission Sustainable Investing and member of the EFFAS CESG. (see article photo.) View his talk here. Some of the information he discussed is available here.
The latest trends in ESG panel made up from Prof. Dr. Alexander Bassen, full professor of capital markets and management at University of Hamburg and Academic Director of the EFFAS CESGA Programme, Thorsten Müller, Managing Partner at Lighthouse Corporate Finance GmbH in Frankfurt, board member DVFA, co-chair EFFAS Capital Markets Commission, Barbara Cohen, CESGA, Executive Director in charge of reviewing and approving credit rating Methodologies at Scope Ratings, Chair of Credit Commission SFAF, co-chair EFFAS Capital Markets Commission, Dr. Gunnar Friede, CIIA, CEFA, DWS Investment GmbH, Senior Portfolio Manager, Head of ESG, Multi Asset & Solutions, leader of DVFA Commission Sustainable Investing and member of the EFFAS CESG and moderated by Frank Klein, Senior Coverage Specialist, Client Coverage Division at DWS, board member DVFA and co-chair of the EFFAS CESG was another hybrid panel switching from online to in the room participation. The panel discussion can be viewed here.
Prof. Dr. Alexander Bassen, the Academic Director of the EFFAS CESGA programme, informed the attendees of the latest update to the CESGA programme along with an introduction to the ESG Essentials programme for Financial Analysts. His presentation can be viewed here.
Human Capital, Reputation, IP, Innovation capacity…. Are intangibles the missing link between finance and sustainability? This was the question posed to the final panel. Answers to this question were put forward by Prof. Stefano Zambon, Secretary General, Italian Foundation for Business Reporting (OIBR), Professor, University of Ferrara and member of the EFFAS CESG, Ian Bishop, Group Fin.–Head of Accounting, Consolidation & External Reporting, Roche, Gianluca Manca, Head of Sustainability at Eurizon Capital. This panel discussion was moderated by Jean Philippe Desmartin, Head of Responsible Investment at Edmond de Rothchild and co-chair of the EFFAS CESG. You can see if you agree with their answers here. You can view the presentation here.
Jean Philippe Desmartin, Head of Responsible Investment at Edmond de Rothschild and co-chair of EFFAS CESG took on the task of giving the Closing Remarks to the conference with a summary of some of the key points discussed and it can be viewed here.
EFFAS and DVFA would like to thank all the speakers and panellists for their time dedicated to participating in the CESG conference this year.
