Sustainable Finance Lunch and Learn Session – October 2024
Biodiversity Finance and The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)
Tuesday 1 October 2024
12.30 pm - 1.30 pm
BST
Location: Microsoft Teams
Pricing: Jersey Finance Members Only
Key Contact
Tom McKenna › Sustainable Finance Lead
email › / profile ›
We’re pleased to invite you to the latest in our series of Lunch and Learn sessions focused on sustainable finance.
During this session our sustainable finance Lead, Tom McKenna will be joined by our guest speakers:
- Onno Van Der Heuvel, Global manager, UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative explaining why biodiversity finance is vital and what we need to do.
- Andrew Mitchell, international thought leader on sustainable finance who will provide an update on TNFD and the relevance to Jersey.
- David Stearn, Chief Executive Officer, Affinity Private Wealth, who will discuss biodiversity finance in action through the ground-breaking rewilding project at Dalnacardoch, Scotland in partnership with Durrell.
About the TNFD
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has developed a set of disclosure recommendations and guidance that encourage and enable business and finance to assess, report and act on their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.
The recommendations and guidance will enable businesses and finance to integrate nature into decision making. Its aim is to support a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes, aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework.
There will be time for a Q&A at the end and the session will be CPD accredited.
If you have any other questions, please contact our events team.
Tom McKenna › Sustainable Finance Lead
email › / profile ›
Tom joined Jersey Finance as the Sustainable Finance Lead in April 2023.
Born and educated in Jersey, Tom studied at the University of Chester where he graduated with a BA Hons and MSc.
Tom has over 17 years’ experience in Jersey’s finance industry, having worked as an Associate Director at Zedra before joining Jersey Finance and, prior to that, at EFG. In his role at Zedra, he drove the creation of, and was Chairperson of, their Global Green Team.
Tom is an Associate of the Chartered Governance Institute (formerly known as the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators), having been admitted to graduateship in 2016.
Andrew Mitchell Founder & CEO Equilibrium Futures, Equilibrium Futures (Jersey) Limited
Mr Mitchell has spent time at the frontline of tropical forest conservation & is an international thought leader on sustainable finance, climate change & forests. He is Vice Chair of the Stewardship Council of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure & works with financial institutions worldwide on emerging regulations, reporting & disclosure in sustainable finance. Founder & Senior Adviser to Global Canopy, one of the world’s leading providers of ‘data for nature’ helped with the understanding of forests & climate within the UNFCCC & pioneered biodiversity disclosure with companies worldwide & pioneered the scientific exploration of rainforest using aerial walkways.
David Stearn Chief Executive, Affinity Private Wealth
David is the Chief Executive of Affinity Private Wealth, a firm he co-founded in 2011 in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis with a vision to do things differently. He draws on his extensive wealth management experience from London and Jersey while maintaining a client-focused role.
A Financial Services graduate from Manchester University, David has over 14 years of experience with RBS in London and Jersey, specialising in credit, risk management, and relationship roles. He also spent 12 years at a private bank, where he was Head of Private Banking and Business Development. Additionally, David is a director of the Trust Business, blending expertise in investments and structuring. He is a Chartered Wealth Planner and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments.
Onno van den Heuvel UNDPs Global Senior Technical Advisor for Biodiversity Finance, Nature Hub
He is responsible for the UNDPs Nature Finance Portfolio, including the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), the GEF-financed Biodiversity Finance Programme, work on the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the Nature Investment Facility and the Biodiversity Credits Alliance. The past 10 years he managed the BIOFIN, growing from a pilot programme with 12 countries to the current portfolio of 132 countries and 10 global donors. He is a co-author of the BIOFIN Workbook, Catalogue of Finance Solutions and other publications and scientific articles on environmental finance. He previously was an advisor with EBRD/Mott MacDonald to design a clean air fund and subsidy models for cleaner fuels in Mongolia, where he also worked at the UNDP Country Office, overseeing environment projects including working on an environmental law reform amending 18 laws and the creation of a protected area finance programme.
