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Join PCAF in Boston on June 26-28, along with the growing community of finance, investment and sustainability leaders supporting the just transition to a decarbonized economy at GreenFin 23. By attending, you’ll gain access to inspiring keynotes, engaging breakout sessions and valuable networking.

Register today using the code GF23PCAF for a 10% discount!

May: Measuring our Carbon Footprint: Applying the PCAF Insurance Standard to trade credit

Understanding our impact on the world as businesses, individuals and society as a whole has become a more urgent question in recent years. The impact of climate change has become more apparent in our daily lives through more extreme weather happening more frequently. Trade credit insurance and surety are central to some of the most important activities in the global economy and at a time of economic uncertainty, the protection they provide becomes even more necessary. But what is our impact as an industry on the world around us? The first place to start with doing something to address climate change is to measure and understand our impact. The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) has developed standards for financial services firms to assess and measure the carbon emissions related to their activities and in 2022, launched their insurance standard. However, given the way credit insurance and surety work, understanding the relationship between the insurer and the source of the emissions is perhaps a little trickier than in more standard insurance lines. In this Webinar delivered by Marco Tormen, Europe & DACHLI Regional Lead at PCAF we discuss PCAF’s approach and how the standard can be applied to trade credit. We also look at how their growing dataset can be used by participants for wider efforts to build sustainability into their business practices.

Join us for the “Inside ESG: Technical Guidance for Accounting and Reporting of GHG Emissions from Real Estate Operations” webinar on April 25 at 10:00 CEST.

Together with GRESB and CRREM, we will dive into the recently published Technical Guidance related to PCAF‘s Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Financial Industry. It contains specific accounting and reporting recommendations for commercial real estate to allow further consistency in reporting for financial institutions.

The webinar will start with Madeline Schneider (PCAF), Prof. Dr. Sven Bienert (CRREM), and Erik Landry (GRESB) covering the creation of the Technical Guidance and some of the key elements found within it.

This presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with leading experts and practitioners on the topic of GHG emissions reporting for the real estate industry.

We hope that this webinar helps all stakeholders along the real estate financial value chain understand and implement best practice GHG accounting for their real estate operations.

PCAF hosted a virtual launch event on Tuesday, December 20th at 9:30 ET | 15:30 CET.  Michael Heilmann, Investment Strategist in Emerging Markets from Allianz and Sam Nierop, Senior Impact officer at FMO - Dutch entrepreneurial development bank presented the outcomes of the emission removals guidance.

The PCAF Secretariat hosted a knowledge exchange webinar with financial institutions sharing their experiences in the decarbonization journey of their building portfolios. This webinar showcased exemplary industry practices of financial institutions in different stages of the decarbonization process, following the launch of the PCAF Guidance on financing the net-zero building transition in September 2022. It is organized in the scope of the PCAF project Financing towards net-zero buildings.

The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) hosted two virtual launch webinars of the PCAF Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for Insurance-Associated Emissions. The virtual launch webinar featured a presentation on the first version of the Insurance-Associated Emissions Standard, including finalized attribution factors for commercial lines and personal motor portfolios.

The 9:00 CET webinar featured Marco Tormen, PCAF Europe and DACHLI Lead and Responsible Project Manager, Martin Weymann, Head Group Sustainability at Swiss Re, Daniel Eherer, Senior Sustainability Manager Commercial Insurance at Zurich Insurance Company Ltd., and Ben Carr, Analytics and Capital Modelling Director at Aviva.

The 9:00 ET | 15:00 CET webinar featured Marco Tormen, PCAF Europe and DACHLI Lead and Responsible Project Manager, Martin Weymann, Head Group Sustainability at Swiss Re, Daniel Eherer, Senior Sustainability Manager Commercial Insurance at Zurich Insurance Company Ltd., and Sheri Wilbanks, Head of GRM P&C Climate & Sustainability at AXA,

The Joint Impact Model Foundation and British International Investment will co-hosted a hybrid event at the COP27 Innovation Zone, Climate Action Innovation Zone at COP27 | 7-18 November (cop-27.org) in Sharm el-Sheikh. The event showcased frameworks and learning from the JIM-PCAF pilot, which helps onboard developing economy banks to use the JIM to align with the PCAF standard and a practical toolkit for investors on Transiton Finance, co-developed by academics, leading DFIs and African commercial FIs, to euqip emerging market finanical institutions with the tools to reach thier net zero ambitions. 

The 14:25-16:00 (Egypt time) hybrid event featured Eslam Mahdy, PCAF MENA Regional Lead.

The BuildingtoCOP Coalition hosted a hybrid event on the crucial role that the financial sector has in transitioning to net zero buildings. The session showcased leadership and best practices across actors in the finance sector in transitioning to net zero buildings, highlight the importance of data collection and taking a whole life carbon approach to financial stakeholders and the implications on property valuations, alongside demonstrating outstanding areas of action and identifying future priorities.

Madeline Schneider, Project Manager of PCAF’s Financing towards net-zero buildings, spoke on "internalizing whole-life carbon costs in investment decisions" and presented on benchmarking and target setting to ensure Paris alignment. 

The Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) hosted a virtual launch of the public consultation on GHG accounting methodology for capital markets facilitated emissions. The virtual launch event featured keynote speakers who provided a deep dive into the proposed methodology.

The PCAF Secretariat hosted a virtual launch of the PCAF Guidance on financing the European building transition to net zero. The virtual launch event featured Madeline Schneider, Project Manager of PCAF’s Financing towards net-zero buildings, Peter Sandahl, Head of Sustainability of Nordea Life & Pension, and Gabriel Marosi, Group Sustainability Officer of Erste Group.

The virtual launch event helped participants understand the added value of the PCAF Guidance for financial institutions, including a harmonized net-zero building definition as well as a stepwise approach towards net zero with the required effort level and speed to decarbonize building portfolios.

An in-person event hosted by Deloitte and organized by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI) Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI).

Giel Linthorst, Executive Director of the PCAF Secretariat presented on the PCAF global standard to measure and disclose insurance-associated emissions. 

A series of workshops hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI) Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) for signatories of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The webinars focused on capacity-building for those signatories that required a deeper understanding of the PCAF Standard.

Jorge Martínez-Blat, PCAF Communications, Climate Policy, and Technical Assistance Lead, delivered two workshops for Latin American banks on 12 and 13 July. Workshops for other regions to be delivered in the coming months.

The PCAF Insurance-Associated Emissions Working Group has launched a progress report on insurance-associated emissions for a public consultation. 

Two identical 45-minute webinars were held to provide participants with highlights of the Progress Report as well as information about how to submit feedback. The webinars featured Marco Tormen, Europe and DACHLI Regional Lead of PCAF, and Martin Weymann, Head Sustainability, Emerging & PRM at Swiss Re, and representing the chair of the PCAF Insurance-Associated Emissions Working Group. 30 minutes of presentation were followed by a 15-minute Q&A.

A virtual workshop hosted by the Hong Kong Green Finance Association and co-organized with PCAF to share the importance and implementation of measuring financed emissions of a portfolio.

The webinar featured Jorge Martínez-Blat, former PCAF Communications, Climate Policy, and Technical Assistance Lead, and Tiange Wei, PCAF Asia-Pacific Regional Lead.

An online forum hosted by The Investment Association which serves as a discussion group, used for exchanging experiences, challenges and best practice related to TCFD implementation.

Angélica Afanador, PCAF Program Manager and Latin America Regional Lead, presented the approach in the PCAF Standard and conducted a Q&A session with UK asset managers, life insurers, FCA-regulated pension providers, and more.

An hybrid event hosted by the UN Principles of Sustainable Insurance (PSI) Initiative. The aim of the event was to look back at how the PSI has shaped sustainable insurance over the last 10 years and to explore how the PSI can amplify sustainable insurance in the next 10 years.

Marco Tormen, PCAF Europe and DACHLI Regional Lead, was invited to represent PCAF in person at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. In the panel on State-of-the-art net-zero insurance thinking and practice, he elaborated on the progress of the upcoming GHG accounting methodologies for insurance-associated emissions.

An online forum hosted by the Shenzhen Green Finance Association and co-organized by the Bank of China Shenzhen Branch.

Yuchen Hu, part of the PCAF Asia-Pacific Regional Team, joined the roundtable on “Finance and net zero” to present PCAF as a relevant international initiative with global development and implementation.

An online seminar hosted by the Japanese Practitioners for Banking on Values (JPBV) in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). 

The webinar featured Tiange Wei, PCAF Asia-Pacific Regional Lead, as well as PCAF signatories and GABV members Banca Ética, Ecology Building Society, and GLS Bank, which presented case studies of how they applied the PCAF Standard to their lending and investment portfolios.

An invite-only webinar hosted by the China Banking Association Expert Climate Working Group, supported by WWF China. 

Tiange Wei, PCAF Asia-Pacific Regional Lead, presented the PCAF Standard and the importance of measuring financed emissions for financial institutions.

A virtual webinar hosted by PRI China, part of a capacity building series for Chinese investors and regulators to build their knowledge and capacity on implementing and reporting on the four TCFD pillars.

Tiange Wei, PCAF Asia-Pacific Regional Lead, discussed measuring and disclosing financed emissions with PCAF as an essential way of fulfilling the Metrics and Targets pillar of TCFD for financial institutions.