Ulf Erlandsson
Sustainability Fellow
Ulf Erlandsson specializes in green bonds and sustainability strategies. He is the Chief Investment Officer of Diem, a hedge fund with a strategy focused on the credit market and climate impact. He is also on the advisory board of Tribe Investment. He formerly ran credit portfolios at AP4, a Swedish state pension fund. He is also the founder of the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute, a non-profit organisation researching and advocating a more positive bond market influence on the world’s sustainability challenges. Starting his career as a quant strategist at Barclays Capital, Ulf specialises in using classical credit trading techniques in a new context to generate returns and impact. He is also an investment writer with his work featuring in books such as Systematic CDS Index trading, in academic articles like Credit alpha and CO2 reduction, and in contributions to teaching material such as the CFA UK’s Certificate in ESG investing. He is PHD in economics.
Pal Brun
Sustainability Fellow
Pal Brun is a Co-Founder, Board member and Executive Vice President for Finance & Sustainability at Morrow Batteries, a company building a giga battery cell factory in the south of Norway and developing next generation battery technology. He is the founder/owner of Nordic Sustainable Ventures, an investment and advisory firm focused on early-stage companies within renewable energy, energy storage, autonomous mobility and digital infrastructure. He has 12 years experience as a management consultant at PwC and EY, incl. being the Head of Climate Change and Sustainability Services. During this period, he advised leading global private equity and venture capital firms, institutional investors, multi-national corporations and government agencies on a broad range of sustainability issues. His industry experience encompasses private equity, banking, industrial products, mining and metal, retail and consumer goods, telecommunications, transport and logistics, oil & gas and utilities. He has broad international experience and have worked for clients located across Europe, North- and South America, Australia and Asia. In the period from 1993-2003, he was actively involved in Norwegian politics and held several political positions in Norway. He is a Master of Law from the University of Oslo.
Karen Sund
Sustainability Fellow
Karen Sund is based in Norway with wide international experience from advising companies and governments/countries. She Specialises in sustainable and responsible investments, boards and corporate governance, energy, climate, policy, strategy and risk management. She is the Coordinator of Biogass Oslofjord – 3 counties facilitating biogas in Norway. She is also a board member and a consultant on strategic and commercial issues around energy and sustainability. She has extensive experience in Management of teams and projects and also board work (domestic and international companies). She is the Devil’s advocate to prepare for future.
Sasja Beslik
Sustainability Fellow
Sasja Beslik, is an internationally renowned Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) financial expert. He is the Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Finance Development at Bank J. Safra Sarasin. Previously he was with Nordea Asset Management where he had been Head of Group Sustainable Finance for Nordea since 2017. He joined Nordea in 2009 as Head of Responsible Investments and Identity and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer at Nordea Investment Funds in 2011, when he was also a consultant to the World Bank. He was Deputy CEO and Head Stewardship & Engagement at Banco Funds & ABN AMRO Asset Management in Sweden from 2004 to 2009. In 2017 Beslik was named “Sustainability Leader of the Year” by The New Economy magazine and won the “Swedish Banking Profile of the Year” award from Privata Affärer magazine in 2017. In 2013, he received the Order of the Seraphim from the King of Sweden for outstanding contributions to Swedish environmental and sustainability theory. He is a well-known blogger and influencer on ESG. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics and journalism from Stockholm University.
James Cameron
Sustainability Fellow
James Cameron is an award-winning authority in the global climate change movement. He is an advocate for sustainability and a catalyst for creating significant positive change where it has the biggest impact on environmental challenges globally. James Cameron is Chairman of the Overseas Development Institute, Senior Advisor at Pollination, Tulchan, SYSTEMIQ, AVIVO and Carbon Cap Management. He is also a member of HM Treasury’s Infrastructure UK Advisory Council and GE’s ecomagination advisory board, an advisor to the Climate Bonds Initiative, and a trustee member of the UK Green Building Council. He is the Chairman of start-ups ETIndex, which helps investors manage carbon risk, and Green Running. He was Co-Founder of the Carbon Disclosure Project, and its former Chairman. He was also the co-founder and Chairman of Climate Change Capital. He was Counsel to Baker & McKenzie and was the founder and the head of their Climate Change and Clean Energy Practice. He spent much of his legal career working on climate change matters, including negotiating the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol as an adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States. As a barrister he appeared in several of the leading cases in international and environmental law. Mr Cameron has held academic positions at Cambridge, London, Bruges and Sydney, and is currently affiliated with the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy. He was educated at University of Western Australia, University College London (LLB), Queens’ College, Cambridge (LLM), and Inner Temple (called to the Bar 1987).
Sean Kidney
Sustainability Fellow
Sean Kidney works extensively in mobilising global capital for climate action. He is the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative and acts as chair of the Climate Bond Standards Board (members represent $34 trillion of assets under management and some 50 organisations are involved in its development and governance) and convenor of the Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition (GIIC). He serves as a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance and is co-Chair of the India Green Bonds Council. He has advised the People’s Bank of China on how to grow green bonds in China, has been a member of the Commonwealth Expert Group on Climate Finance, and has been a consultant on green bonds to the United Nations Secretary General. He is also a member of German International Aid Ministry’s TRANSfer Expert Group (on “Using Climate Financing to Leverage Sustainable Transport), Mercer’s Sustainability Opportunities Fund Advisory Panel, The Canadian Corporate Knights Capital Advisory Council, Carbon War Room’s Building Efficiency Advisory Board, and The Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport’s (SloCAT) Financing Framework. He is a regular speaker on climate change and finance, and has over the past year spoken at conferences and seminars on six continents. Sean’s background is in stakeholder communications, social change strategy and issues marketing. He was previously a marketing advisor to a number of the largest Australian pension funds, an owner of social marketing, web site development and current affairs publishing firms.
Michael Sheren
Sustainability Fellow
Michael Sheren is a Senior Advisor with the Bank of England. In his role, he provides counsel and independent challenge to senior PRA Management on matters concerning, governance, banking supervision and policy as well as research relating to the financial markets. On behalf of the BoE and the UK government, Mr Sheren Co-Chairs the G20 Sustainable Finance Study Group with China. Correspondingly he is actively involved in domestic and international green finance activities including bilateral negotiations related to the UKs Economic and Finance Dialogues with China, Brazil and India. Mr Sheren is also actively involved in the Banks fintech and digital finance work in the UK and Europe. He is also a Senior Advisor with the UNDP and is working with the Finance Sector Hub to develop a sustainable and inclusive world through the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Accord. Prior to Joining the Bank, Mr Sheren spent over twenty five years in the debt capital markets where he specialized in the structuring, distribution and trading debt for major global financial institutions in New York and London. Mr Sheren holds master’s degrees from Harvard, The London School of Economics and New York University where he studied finance, economics, philosophy and public policy. He also holds a BA from the George Washington University.
Mark Campanale
Sustainability Fellow
Mark Campanale is a sustainable investment analyst with thirty years of experience. He is the Founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and conceived the ‘unburnable carbon’ capital markets thesis. In 2011 he commissioned and was editor of the award winning “Unburnable Carbon – Are the World’s Financial Markets Carrying a Carbon Bubble?” which kick started the fossil fuel divestment movement. More recently, he co-founded ‘Planet Tracker’ a financial think tank focused on fisheries and land use change and for his work was included in the “1000 most influential people in London” by The London Evening Standard (2018). He served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999-2003). He is a Founder Director of the UK Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum (UKSIF), 1990-2006, is a member of the Advisory Council of ImpactBase.org; a member of the Advisory Board of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s ‘Conservation and Markets Initiatives’; a member of UNCTAD’s Sustainable Stock Exchange’s Green Finance Advisory Group; and is the Hon Treasurer of The Rainforest Foundation UK. Mark is an advisor to Consilium Capital and serves on the Advisory Board of Tribe Impact Capital. He is also a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds firstly at Jupiter Asset Management in 1989 with the Ecology Funds, NPI with Global Care, the AMP Capital Sustainable Future Funds, and Henderson Global Investor’s Industries of the Future Funds. Mark has a BA in Politics & Economic History and an M.Sc in Agricultural Economics.
Beate Sjåfjell
Sustainability Fellow
Beate Sjåfjell is Professor Dr Juris at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law, Department of Private Law, and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Faculty of Economics, Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, and Professorial Research Fellow at Deakin University School of Law. Her fields of interest include company and financial market law, corporate governance and corporate sustainability, EU law, environmental law and law and economics. She is head of the Faculty’s Research Group Companies, Markets and Sustainability (jus.uio.no/companies), and of several international networks (jus.uio.no/companies under Networks), as well of the international research project Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART, 2016–2020, smart.uio.no), funded under the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020. She has previously coordinated Sustainable Companies (2010–2014), funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Professor Sjåfjell’s publications include the monograph, Towards a Sustainable European Company Law (Kluwer Law International, 2009) and the edited volumes The Greening of European Business Under EU Law: Taking Article 11 TFEU Seriously (Routledge, 2015, co-editor Anja Wiesbrock), Company Law and Sustainability: Legal Barriers and Opportunities (Cambridge University Press, 2015, co-editor: Benjamin Richardson) and Sustainable Public Procurement under EU Law: New Perspectives on the State as Stakeholder (Cambridge University Press, 2016, co-editor Anja Wiesbrock). She has also published a number of papers on EU company law and the integration of sustainable development. Many of her papers are available at ssrn.com/author=375947.
Kees van der Leun
Sustainability Fellow
Kees van der Leun is allround dedicated sustainable energy expert with 34 years of experience in the field of renewable energy, energy efficiency, carbon emission and reduction as consultant, business developer, manager and strategist. He has worked as creative strategic consultant on the energy transition, for companies and governments. In 1986, he joined Ecofys as its third employee. Ecofys is an international consultancy specialized in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate change. At present, he is its COO. He was the initiator and project director of The Energy Report, thorough analysis of what it takes to get there, published by WWF (2011): https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/the-energy-report. He has strong social media presence with 29,000 followers on Twitter as @Sustainable2050; Onalytica report “Key Topics and Influencers Shaping the Climate Change Debate” has @Sustainable2050 as world’s #13 most influential Tweeter on energy & climate: https://lnkd.in/dSKvqpP
Angela Morelli
Sustainability Fellow
Angela Morelli is an award-winning Italian information designer based in Norway. From climate change to health, she has worked with a wide range of scientific organisations and professionals, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the European Environment Agency, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the Center for Climate Research in Norway and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Her goal is to co-design engaging visual solutions that empower audiences and support informed decision-making. Angela is an acclaimed international speaker, an Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London and a visiting lecturer at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. She was awarded the Il Monito del Giardino Award in 2013 along with philanthropist Paul Polak, primatologist Jane Goodall, water scientist Tony Allan and other individuals committed to defending planetary ecosystems. Angela was named a 2012 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum
Alice Garton
Sustainability Fellow
Alice Garton is the Legal Director for the Foundation for International Law (FILE) for the Environment. FILE seeks to bring transformative legal strategies to scale in order to combat the climate and ecological emergencies. Previously Alice lead the Climate Programme at Europe’s leading environmental law charity, ClientEarth. The programme uses legal advocacy, advice and litigation to accelerate government policies and corporate investment strategies that are consistent with a zero emissions future. In addition to her role at ClientEarth, Alice is also co-investigator for the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative at the University of Oxford’s Smith School, and on the Advisory Committees for UK based NGO Influence Map, Positive Investment Cambridge, and campaign coalition Europe Beyond Coal. Prior to joining ClientEarth, Alice worked for 15 years as a lawyer in large defence law firms (Clayton Utz, Olswang, Lovells) acting for company directors in commercial litigation and insolvency disputes, and then as Senior Legal Counsel at Brookfield in London. In parallel to her litigation practice, Alice developed and implemented CSR initiatives at Clayton Utz and Brookfield. At Brookfield, she advised Brookfield Asset Management on the UK and EU climate change regulatory regimes relevant to UK subsidiaries, and worked with the Brookfield Multiplex board of directors in identifying strategic business opportunities in the green economy.
Alice has researched and written about various issues in international environmental law through her work at Chatham House in 2006 and in her other roles. Alice graduated with first class honours in both her undergraduate and postgraduate studies. She has a double degree in Law and Politics from Charles Darwin University (in Australia) and a Masters of Environmental Law and Policy from University College London.
Catherine Howarth
Sustainability Fellow
Catherine is the CEO of ShareAction. She joined ShareAction in July 2008, having previously been the founder and lead organiser of West London Citizens. Earlier in her career she was Senior Researcher at the New Policy Institute. Catherine is a board member of Green Alliance and of the Scott Trust, owner of The Guardian, serving on the Scott Trust’s investment committee. She was a Member Nominated Trustee of The Pensions Trust (the multi-employer pension scheme for the UK’s not-for-profit sector) for five years until Spring 2013. She served for four years on The Pensions Trust’s Investment Committee.
Catherine holds a First Class BA in Modern History from Oxford University and an MSc in Industrial Relations from the London School of Economics. In June 2011 Catherine was named a ‘Rising Star of Corporate Governance’ by Yale University’s Millstein Center. In 2013, Pensions Insight featured her as one of the 50 most influential people in pensions, and in May 2011 Investment and Pensions Europe called her one of the ‘top ten women in pensions’. Catherine was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014.
Erik Solheim
Sustainability Fellow
Erik Solheim has an extensive experience in environment and development. He was Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (2016 to 2018). Prior to this, he was the chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and was instrumental in bringing new members and partners to the Committee. Solheim held the combined portfolio of Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development (2007 to 2012) and Minister of International Development (2005 to 2007). During this time Norwegian aid (1%) reached, the highest in the world, the Nature Diversity Act was enacted and The Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative, to conserve rainforests, was established. This initiative provided critical input to the establishment of UN REDD, the global coalition to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. He acted as the main facilitator of the peace process in Sri Lanka (1998 to 2005) that led to a ceasefire and the Oslo Declaration in 2002, where parties welcomed a federal state in Sri Lanka. He continued to lead peace efforts in Sri Lanka as Minister, and has contributed to peace processes in Sudan, Nepal, Myanmar and Burundi. Solheim has served as UN Environment’s Special Envoy for Environment, Conflict and Disaster and a Patron of Nature for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. He has also received a number of awards for his work on climate and the environment, including UN Environment’s Champions of the Earth award, TIME Magazine’s Hero of the Environment, and an honorary doctorate from TERI University in Delhi, India. He has also written three books: Den store samtalen, Naermere, and Politikk er a ville. Solheim holds a degree in history and social studies from the University of Oslo.
Erik Solheim has an extensive experience on environment and development in government and international organizations. He was Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme between May 2016 and November 2018. Prior to this, he was the chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. In this capacity, Solheim emphasized the role of private sector and tax in development finance, spearheading the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership and the Addis Tax Initiative. Solheim also focused on the need to channel more aid to least-developed countries, and bring new members and partners to the Development Assistance Committee.
“If we all come together and work together, there is no limit to what we can achieve on planet Earth.” – Erik Solheim
From 2007 to 2012, Solheim held the combined portfolio of Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development, and from 2005 to 2007 served as Minister of International Development. This unique portfolio mixture allowed him to bring a coherent approach to development and the environment.
During his time as Minister, Norwegian aid reached 1 per cent, the highest in the world. Solheim also put into place the Nature Diversity Act, which many consider to be Norway’s most important piece of environmental legislation in the last 100 years. The Norwegian Climate and Forest Initiative, in which Norway cooperates closely with Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana and other countries to conserve rainforests, was also established under Solheim. This initiative provided critical input to the establishment of UN REDD, the global coalition to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.
Solheim is also an experienced peace negotiator, having acted as the main facilitator of the peace process in Sri Lanka from 1998 to 2005. The peace process led to a ceasefire and the Oslo Declaration in 2002, where parties welcomed a federal state in Sri Lanka. He continued to lead peace efforts in Sri Lanka as Minister, and has contributed to peace processes in Sudan, Nepal, Myanmar and Burundi.
In addition to his role in government and international development, Solheim served has UN Environment’s Special Envoy for Environment, Conflict and Disaster and a Patron of Nature for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. He has also received a number of awards for his work on climate and the environment, including UN Environment’s Champions of the Earth award, TIME Magazine’s Hero of the Environment, and an honorary doctorate from TERI University in Delhi, India. He has also written three books: Den store samtalen, Naermere, and Politikk er a ville. Solheim holds a degree in history and social studies from the University of Oslo. He is married with four children.
Per Espen Stoknes
Sustainability Fellow
Per Espen Stoknes, a psychologist with PhD in economics, is a TED Global speaker, and serves as the director of Centre for Green Growth at the Norwegian Business School. An experienced foresight facilitator and academic, he’s also serial entrepreneur, including co-founding clean-tech company GasPlas. Author of several books, among them Learning from the Future (2004, in Norwegian) Money & Soul (2009) and the “Outstanding Academic Title of 2015” award winning book: What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming (2015). Per Espen has also served as the member of Norwegian Parliament.
Kevin Noone
Sustainability Fellow
Kevin Noone is Professor of Chemical Meteorology at the Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry (ACES) at Stockholm University. He was founding Director of the Swedish Secretariat for Environmental Earth System Sciences (SSEESS) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 2010-2014. From 2004-2008 he was the Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). He has a broad background spanning Chemical Engineering, Oceanography, Meteorology, and Atmospheric Physics. After his PhD degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington, he has been on the faculty at both Stockholm University in Sweden and the University of Rhode Island in the U.S. He works in the areas of global sustainability and Earth System science. He is Chair of the Transdisciplinary Advisory Board for the European Joint Programming Initiative on Climate, Vice-Chair of the NORGLOBAL program board of the Norwegian Research Council, and is Vice-Chair of the American Geophysical Union’s Thriving Earth Exchange Advisory Board.
Kevin is active in linking science with stakeholders and the general public. He works with communities, corporations, NGOs, military and security agencies, faith-based groups and other stakeholders in the area of sustainability and strategic planning for the Anthropocene.
Professor Andreas G. F. Hoepner
Sustainability Fellow
Professor Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Ph.D., is a Financial Data Scientist working towards the vision of a Conflict-Free Capitalism. He is on the management team as Vice Principal for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), a visiting professor at various other universities. He is an independent member on the European Union’s Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance and is on technical advisory boards for many entities including BJSS, www.ClimateDisclosure100.info, Datamaran the Deep Data Delivery Standards , Finance Map, the French Social Investment Forum (FIR), the Future World Fund (with Lord Stern), Kempen and Proxy Insight. He is a member of the various assessment committees for France’s Awards. He is co-founder and chair of two socially motivated enterprises: ReFine Research Project and SVL. Hoepner also heads the ‘Practical Tools’ research group of the Mistra Financial Systems (MFS) research consortium, leads on data science for the ‘Cyber Readiness for Boards’ project funded by the UK National Cyber Security Centre, advised the EU’s Joint Research Centre on the EU Ecolabel, served as lead academic advisor to the United Nations supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and consulted for organisations such as IFC, CFA or CISL. He co-invented ‘EU Climate Transition Investing’. Andreas is the sole inventor of a US patent titled ‘Investment Performance Measurement’ (No. US8751357 B1). He also won several awards including a 2019 (with Oikonomou, Sautner, Starks & Zhou), 2015 (with Adamsson) and 2010 PRI Best Paper Awards.
Ketil Raknes
Sustainability Fellow
Ketil Raknes is an experienced communication and sustainability expert. He is an assistant professor at Kristiania University College and is the program director for PR and communication. In the past he has been the state secretary for the minister of the environment. He is a former political adviser to the Norwegian parliament and for the vice president and leader of the parliamentary group of the socialist left party and advisor for Ministry of Education. He has also been junior minister in the Ministry of Education. At Burson Marsteller he worked with political analysis and strategic political communication for clients in the public and private sector. He is leading a research project “Political leadership under pressure” with colleages at Christiana University College the project has received application based funding. He has written two books and is a frequently writes op-ed pieces for Norwegian newspapers.
John Howchin
Sustainability Fellow
John Howchin is Secretary General of Council on Ethics for the First, Second, Third and Fourth Swedish national pension funds. He is in charge of strategy, research and coordination of corporate engagement of the Council. He is also a member of the asset management committee at Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. He has worked with socially responsible investments and corporate social responsibility for over 20 years. Prior to joining the Council he worked at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) in Oslo, Norway, where he was in charge of the environmental strategy. He co-founded Green Index, that in 2001 produced the first climate change index in the world, covering the Stockholm stock exchange. John holds a BSc in environmental science and human ecology at Goteborg University.
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