Reflections from my First Year at Standard Chartered

It is hard to believe but last week marked my one-year anniversary at 渣打银行 . Being the Bank's inaugural Chief Sustainability Officer has been incredibly rewarding and as I look back on my first year, I thought I would share some reflections from my experience at this special institution.

When I joined the Bank, I was met by dedicated and passionate sustainability professionals who brought an innovative spirit to our organisation.?I was struck by their commitment to provide unique solutions to our clients' sustainability needs and felt immediately energised by their enthusiasm and skillset. My organisation has grown throughout the year with a blend of internal promotions to fill key roles complimented by external hires, resulting in Team CSO welcoming experts in blended finance, sustainable and transition finance, climate risk,?biodiversity, marketing,?carbon accounting, strategy, disclosures, data and learning content, amongst others.?Building up our function's people power has been critical to positioning us to effectively leverage the function and the organisation to deliver our strategy.?

The last twelve months have been incredibly busy, starting with establishing my CSO organisational?structure and creating?a refreshed sustainability strategy for the Bank which we are hard at work implementing and embedding.?We have also evolved the sustainability governance and data infrastructure to support the delivery of our ambitious agenda, sustainable finance commitments and roadmap to net zero. We have prioritised four key sustainability emergent thematics and have set up cross-divisional innovation hubs to realise these themes across our market footprint in dynamic ways. With an emphasis on maturing and evolving the sustainability eco-system and Standard Chartered's role within it, we have given concerted focus to critical areas, such as the Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs), Adaptation, natural capital and Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs).?Importantly, we reached new milestones in sustainable finance revenues, assets, capital mobilisation and impact.

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Having previously worked in institutions which were largely focused on developed markets, Standard Chartered provided me with a fresh perspective as our footprint touches some of the world's most dynamic and high-growth markets with a heavy emphasis on the Global South.?I have been pleasantly surprised by how committed our clients and major regions of operation are to the global sustainability agenda and how sustainability is already becoming integral to our clients' business operations. Despite this encouraging momentum and traction in transitioning towards a more sustainable future, there is often a surprising gap in appreciation between East and West surrounding developing economies' baselines and execution challenges. During this year at Standard Chartered, I have seen rich investment opportunities and the growth potential of sustainability in our markets -?which are the very markets which are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis and the profound social challenges we seek to address.

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In a time of otherwise pressing global economic challenges stemming from high inflation, geo-politics and energy security to name a few, sustainability has not been de-prioritised in our clients' agendas. In many cases, the current environment has actually resulted in a re-affirmation of sustainability as a top priority. This only shows that despite global economic shifts, sustainability will remain core to the strategy for most of our stakeholders and continue to underpin strategic decisions throughout value chains.

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As I enter my next year as CSO at Standard Chartered, I look forward to new breakthroughs in areas which currently present challenges for the acceleration of sustainable transitions. I hope to see the industry make meaningful steps towards scaling technological and business model solutions for hard to abate sectors, the improvement in access to high quality sustainability data, harmonising market standards, regulatory regimes and taxonomies, advancing the ability to price and value natural capital, and, hopefully, adopting a global accreditation for high quality carbon credits, all while redirecting precious capital to where it is needed most for critical investment.

Upon reflecting on this past year, I feel grateful to work for an institution that holds its 'Here for Good' ethos close to its core and delivers meaningful impact to the clients and communities it serves.?Thank you to all my colleagues at Standard Chartered for welcoming me to the firm and for your partnership.??