Sean Kidney CEO

Sean Kidney. Co-founder and CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative

Sean Kidney is the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CB), an international NGO working to mobilize global capital for climate action.

Working with Climate Bond Partners in the investment and finance community around the world, CBI develops standards and "taxonomies", advocates for policy and regulator measures supportive of green capital flows, and promotes rapid creation of investible green assets.

Partners include major investors such as CalSTRS, CDPQ, SSGA, Axa IM, BlackRock, PIMCO, Union Investments, Ping An (China) AM, Allianz GI and PGGM; banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse, Citi, DBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered, ABN AMRO, Mizuho, MUFG, SMBC Nikko, UniCredit, Danske Bank, NAB, ANZ, Westpac, CBA, Society Generale, JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas and RBC; and market infrastructure actors such as LSEG (Refinitiv), Luxembourg SE , Singapore SX, MSCI, Moody's, S&P Global, Tradeweb, Nasdaq, NYSE and others.

Climate Bonds Initiative projects include:

- A green bond definitions and certification scheme with $34 trillion of assets represented on its Board and some 200 organizations involved in its development and governance. The Board includes the State Treasurer of California; the US Investor Network on Climate Risk; the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change; CalSTRS, the USA’s second largest pension fund; Australia’s Investor Group on Climate Change; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and the International Cooperative Mutual Insurers Federation.

- Providing comprehensive market data and analysis.

- Green bond market development programs in China, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, India, ASEAN and East Africa;

Sean is a member of the:

Green bond issuers

-       French government’s Green Sovereign Bond Evaluation Council

-       UK Government’s green gilt advisory committee

Green fund

-       Advisory Group of the LAGreen Fund

Industry coalitions

-       Mexico Climate Finance Consultative Board

-       Future of Sustainable Data Alliance

Issuance support initiatives

-       Board of Climate Transition Pathways, an accreditation framework for insurance companies

-       Board of the UNDP-GEF Climate Aggregation Platform

-       Astana International Finance Centre’s Green Advisory Committee

-       Finance Advisory Board, Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet 

-       European Advisory Board of the SMARTER Finance for Families (energy efficiency) initiative

-       FAST-Infra (Finance to Accelerate the Sustainable Transition – Infrastructure)

Policy development

-       European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance

-       Advisory Network to the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which aims to accelerate progress towards a healthy ocean.

-       VEB (Russian Development Bank) Sustainable Development Expert Council

NGOs

-       Advisory Board of the International Sustainable Financial Centre in Prague

-       Sustainability Fellow at the Nordic Institute for Finance, Technology and Sustainability.

-       International Advisory Board of the Romanian Sustainable Investment Finance Association (ROSIF)

He has previously been a:

- Consultant on green bonds to the United Nations Secretary-General

- Member of the EU Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance

- Member of the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance

- Member of the People's Bank of China Green Finance Task Force

- Member of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Expert Committee on Climate Finance.

- Member of the Blended Finance Task Force

He is a Professor in Practice at SOAS University of London. In 2016 he was named Environmental Finance magazine’s “Personality of the Year” and in from 2017 to 2019 was voted GlobalCapital magazine’s “Most Influential Champion” of the sustainable finance market.

 

Speaking Engagements

A regular speaker on climate change and finance, Sean has over the past year spoken at conferences and seminars on six continents:

- Watch videos of Sean's talks.

- See a list of previous webinars

- Listen to Sean's podcasts

 

You can request Sean to speak at your conference