Episode 5: Joining forces to achieve sustainable goals

03/16/21 • 17 min

Based at HSBC in Hong Kong, Wai-Shin Chan is proudly “the geek on the team” advising on ESG integration for the bank and also for businesses, economies, and societies more broadly. He is Global Head of the HSBC Climate Change Centre of Excellence and Global Co-Head of ESG Research.

Chan discusses how investors, corporations and regulators need to work in tandem to implement sustainable goals – and communicate their plans so that stakeholders understand what this means for them. He also emphasises that ESG must be embedded deeply within corporate and investor decision-making.

“It’s all very well having a pledge, but implementing that pledge is much more difficult,” says Chan. “We’ve seen a lot of net zero plans from corporates and countries that actually don’t come with any details at all.”

In this illuminating episode, Chan also reflects on carbon offsets, the accuracy of carbon accounting, avoiding greenwashing and rainbow washing, and how business is entering “the phase of climate integrity” where targets and results are scrutinised more than ever before.

This is the fifth episode in our 30 For Net Zero 30 series. In each episode, Ashurst partner Anna-Marie Slot speaks with climate action champions across the globe about real steps to take now towards 2030 goals.

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Find out more about our podcast channels on Ashurst.com/podcasts

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Previous Episode

Choose to challenge this International Women’s Day

Elizabeth Broderick AO, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, the longest serving Sex Discrimination Commissioner (2007-2015) in Australia as well as former partner and board member at Ashurst, reflects on her exceptional career and her decision to move from Law to focus on gender equality.
In this special episode, released on International Women’s Day 2021, Paul Jenkins, Global Managing Partner at Ashurst, speaks to Elizabeth about her time at Ashurst, founding the Champions of Change Coalition, her work with the UN and what drives her to continue to work for change and her unwavering commitment to gender equality globally.

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Next Episode

How and why ESG is becoming business as usual

In this bonus episode, Ashurst partner Anna-Marie Slot chats with Responsible Risk Ltd founder Richard Peers about the past, present and future of sustainable finance.

Peers emphasises that the capability now exists to increase transparency in the circular economy. “We need to put a sort of vaccine shot in the arm of our response to data needs for climate change by bringing in satellite and sensor data, normalising it and making it available so that really good risk decisions can be made,” he says.

Peers also explains how there needs to be a virtuous circle of consumer demand influencing policy change influencing corporate action. He also discusses recent data indicating that ethical organisations deliver better returns for investors. Ten years from now, Peers suggests, sustainable finance and ESG will be embedded in every investment decision that is made.

Find out more about our podcast channels on Ashurst.com/podcasts

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.