|
WK-31: Protecting ecosystem
services through private sector partnerships and the capital markets
Wednesday, August 10, 11:30 AM
- 1:15 PM, Meeting Room 512d, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Fee:
None – includes
Grab-and-Go Lunch ticket.
Minimum:
15
Maximum: 35
Organizers:
Bruce Kahn
(bruce.m.kahn@smithbarney.com),
Orie Loucks
Description:
This
workshop serves to follow-up the organized oral session of the same title
(OOS-29) that explores the relationship between environmental, scientific, and
financial communities. We will explore further the methods of analysis for
assessing ecosystem damages and the resulting economic implications. Tools to be
explored include Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis, economic
valuations of ecosystem goods and services economic valuations, and financial
market analysis tools. Environmental scientists, economists, and financial
analysts have been asking whether the damage costs imposed on the environment by
industrial resource uses (often referred to as externalities) can be reflected
in financial markets. Emerging methods of assessing corporate environmental
performance, rating publicly traded companies, and using these metrics in
capital markets requires collaboration between ecosystem scientists and business
analysts. Our session explores this relationship by discussing alternatives in
the emerging Responsible Investing Field. We examine how damage to (or recovery
of) valued ecosystem services could be considered by investors as they set a
price for a company’s stocks. Through a variety of research efforts on
alternative strategies of incorporating environmental risks into capital
markets, we find that a key challenge for environmental scientists and financial
managers is learning how to use research on long-term risks to drive asset
management decisions during the investment time frame. Our community is meeting
this challenge as
U.S.
pension plan sponsors will begin to allocate more money to “best of class”
environmental leadership strategies since they will meet highest fiduciary
standards.
|
