UN official says credibility of climate COPs at stake heading into 2025
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
Release Date: 12/06/2024
Exploring tech giant Amazon's approach to water stewardship
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
The United Nations’ annual World Water Day observance took place on March 22, with a focus on supporting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. In this episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast, we dive into the water stewardship practices at Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies with a market cap of more than $2 trillion dollars. Amazon Water Sustainability Lead Will Hewes outlines the company's approach to water in the communities it serves and across Amazon's business lines, which range from e-commerce to online...
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How oil major ExxonMobil is approaching the energy transition
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
In recent episodes of the All Things Sustainable podcast, we’ve interviewed some of the world’s biggest financial and technology companies about how they’re approaching sustainability and the energy transition. But how is the energy industry thinking about these topics — including the world’s largest fossil fuel companies? To answer that question, we traveled to Houston, Texas, to cover the annual CERAWeek conference hosted by S&P Global — an event informally known as the ‘Super Bowl’ of the energy industry. In today’s episode we sit down on the sidelines of...
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How EU proposals could change the sustainability reporting landscape
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
In this episode of the All Things Sustainable podcast, we're unpacking new proposals to simplify sustainability reporting in Europe. Released in February 2025, the European Commission's Omnibus Simplification Package would drastically reduce the number of companies subject to corporate sustainability reporting requirements in a bid to slash red tape, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The proposals include measures to simplify the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU...
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How the Sustainable Markets Initiative convenes the public and private sectors to drive solutions
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
Welcome to the Terra Carta Series of the All Things Sustainable podcast, a collaboration with the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI). Throughout 2025, we’ll be interviewing SMI member CEOs from around the world and across industries about how they’re approaching sustainability challenges and opportunities. The SMI is a network of over 250 global CEOs across finance and industry. It facilitates private sector diplomacy with the ambition of making sustainability the driving force of global markets and value creation. S&P Global is a proud SMI member. ...
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Unpacking the intersection of gender and climate solutions
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
This week, the All Things Sustainable podcast delves into the intersection of climate change and gender equality with Rachel Vestergaard, Founder and CEO of Empower Co. Empower Co. is a brokerage firm that is building a global voluntary market for women’s empowerment as measured by the W+ Standard, which is hosted by the S&P Global Commodity Insights Environmental Registry. Studies have showed that the climate crisis is not gender neutral, with women and girls experiencing the greatest impacts of climate change. As we approach International Women's Day on March 8,...
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Why JPMorganChase is 'steadfast' in its focus on sustainability
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
This week, the All Things Sustainable podcast (formerly ESG Insider) reached 2 million downloads. Today, we bring you an interview with the largest bank in the US. We sit down with Brian DiMarino, Managing Director and Deputy Director of Global Sustainability, Strategy and Operations at JPMorganChase. He explains how the bank is navigating a challenging sustainability landscape, including its decision to exit the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and why he believes it’s time for a “rebrand” of some of the language companies use when communicating about sustainability topics. At...
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How companies are navigating 2025 sustainability challenges + a new podcast name!
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
Today marks the anniversary of our podcast launch in 2019. Since then, we’ve released more than 250 episodes, and the show has been downloaded nearly 2 million times around the globe. We’re celebrating these milestones and the evolution of the ESG Insider podcast by launching a new name: the All Things Sustainable podcast. Our new name reflects an idea we’ve heard repeatedly from guests over the past six seasons: Solutions to big sustainability challenges like climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and achieving a just and equitable transition require action from all...
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What the LA wildfires show about climate change and the future of insurance
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast we explore climate change and its implications for property insurance through the lens of the wildfires in Los Angeles. The fires that broke out in LA in January killed at least 29 people and destroyed or damaged thousands of structures. Early estimates from AccuWeather put the total damage and economic losses at more than $250 billion. “Climate change is not the only culprit here, but it is an accentuating factor that made this event and other events more severe than they would have been otherwise,” says Terry Thompson, Chief...
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How private capital can bridge gaps in sustainable, climate finance
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
The UN estimates that the annual financing gap for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is in the trillions of dollars. The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance estimates developing countries’ investment needs to address climate change and the energy transition at $3.2 trillion a year by 2035, excluding China. Closing these gaps will require private sector investment, and in this episode of the ESG Insider podcast we’re talking with Sebnem Sener, the Head of Private Finance for the SDGs at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Sustainable Finance...
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2024 was the hottest year on record — here's what that means for climate goals
All Things Sustainable (formerly ESG Insider)
In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we take a deep dive into a new report that found 2024 was the warmest year on record. The report is from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is the EU's Earth Observation Program and provides information about climate across the world. The report found that average global temperatures for the year were more than 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels — the global warming limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. "Even if at some point, we overshoot this target, I think we need to continue to...
info_outlineThe UN's big annual climate change conference known as COP29 wrapped up in November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we sit down in Baku with Marcos Neto, Assistant Secretary General and Director of the UN Development Programme’s Bureau of Policy and Programme Support.
Among other things, the UNDP helps countries develop their Nationally Determined Contributions — plans for achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement that are updated every five years. The next round of NDCs is due in February 2025. In the interview, Marcos discusses key outcomes from COP29 related to climate finance, the outlook for NDCs and National Adaptation Plans, and the work the UNDP is doing in other areas such as helping countries with their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, or NBSAPs.
Marcos also talks about the COP process and what is at stake heading into COP30, which is slated to take place in his hometown of Belém, Brazil in November 2025 and is already garnering a lot of attention.
“I am optimistic that history will be made in my hometown,” Marcos says. "Despite all the geopolitical troubles, despite the wars, despite everything else ... we have an opportunity in November next year to show that the UN matters, that multilateralism matters.”
2025 will also mark one decade since the Paris Agreement was signed — an important milestone, Marcos says. “If we have an agreement that 10 years on, cannot put us on the trajectory to 1.5 degrees, is it still credible?”
This piece was published by S&P Global Sustainable1, a part of S&P Global.
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