In this week's episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we bring you coverage of the annual S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit held in London on May 8.

We sit down with panelists on the sidelines of the event to discuss key conference themes, including data challenges related to climate, nature and the energy transition; the role that technology and innovation can play in addressing these challenges and the potentially transformative role of AI; and the challenge of sustaining economic growth in emerging markets while accelerating the transition.

"We don't have enough actual innovation, we don't actually have enough quantum of finance going into developing countries," says Sagarika Chatterjee, Climate Finance Director and Finance Lead for the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions. "This is absolutely critical because this is where a lot of the emissions is going to come from. We can't change the past and the energy system of the past, but we can try to change the carbon that we have in future.”

For emerging markets and developing countries, "the lack of data is the biggest problem," says Budha Bhattacharya, Head of Systematic Research at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. If companies in developing economies embrace sustainability, "a huge amount of capital unlocks," he tells us.

Christopher Johnstone, a partner at management consultant Oliver Wyman, highlights the need for more asset-specific data to understand how companies will be impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss, and he explains the role AI could play here. He also talks to us about how approaches to sustainability are evolving around the world.

"Historically people have seen the climate, sustainability or the ESG agenda as being a very Western agenda," Christopher says. "What I am more and more seeing is this is a core topic across lots of different emerging market economies — even a large number of economies that would traditionally be seen as oil-based. They see the energy transition as actually being a key economic enabler and a growth lever as they look to move away from oil over time."

Listen to our interview from the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit with International Sustainability Standards Board Vice Chair Sue Lloyd: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/issb-vice-chair-sue-lloyd-talks-aligning-sustainability-standards-across-jurisdictions

Less than half of the leading listed companies in the US have a net-zero target, according to the S&P Global Sustainable1 Net-Zero Commitments Tracker dataset. Read the research: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/net-zero-commitments-are-still-the-exception-for-top-us-companies-not-the-rule

Read our research that uses the S&P Global Sustainable1 Nature & Biodiversity Risk Dataset to assess nature-related impacts and dependencies across a company’s direct operations: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/how-the-world-s-largest-companies-depend-on-nature-and-biodiversity

Read research that uses the S&P Global Sustainable1 Physical Risk Exposure Scores and Financial Impact dataset to quantify the financial costs of climate change physical risks for companies: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/quantifying-the-financial-costs-of-climate-change-physical-risks

We’ll be back next week with more coverage from the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit in London. The next leg of the Summit will take place in Tokyo on June 6. Learn more here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/events/summit-2024

This piece was published by S&P Global Sustainable1, a part of S&P Global.

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How AI could solve the data challenge for climate, nature and the energy transition

All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)