Investable transition opportunities: what counts as a climate solution?
How can companies, investors, and banks turn climate ambition into credible action?
As companies in high-emitting sectors move from setting net zero targets to implementing detailed transition plans, investors are demanding greater transparency and fully quantified strategies. Companies are expected to disclose how climate solutions fit into their decarbonisation strategy, including which solutions will be deployed, when, and at what cost. Yet definitions of climate solutions vary widely across sectors, and guidance continues to evolve. Investor priorities are also shifting from excluding high-carbon activities to actively driving transition finance towards low-carbon assets. At the interface of corporate and investor decision-making, banks play a critical role in financing climate solutions. Research from the TPI Centre finds that the world’s largest banks take markedly different approaches to disclosure and target setting associated with deploying climate solutions. Panellists will discuss how consistent definitions, clearer frameworks, and emerging green taxonomies on climate solutions can help accelerate transition finance and explore market opportunities in 2026 and beyond.
Meet our speakers and chair
Shafaq Ashraf is a Policy Fellow and Research Project Manager at the TPI Centre, the academic partner of TPI, an investor-led initiative that provides investors with data on the climate performance of companies, banks, and countries. She manages the Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) project, leads the development of the CA100+ Net Zero Company Benchmark Disclosure Framework methodology and oversees assessments of how companies perform relative to the Framework.
Dan Gardiner is Head of Transition Research, IIGCC, helping develop tools and frameworks that support the assessment of climate related risks and opportunities across investor portfolios and in the real economy. Previously Dan worked at the TPI, helping to develop the carbon performance methodologies in the oil & gas and mining sectors. Dan has 15 years’ experience as a sell-side equity analyst in Deutsche Bank and Arete and holds a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London.
Simone Utermarck is Senior Director Sustainable Finance at the International Capital Market Association (ICMA). She is part of the Secretariat for the Principles for green, social, sustainability-linked and transition bonds and the ESG Code of Conduct. She is involved in global working groups including in the UK with the Transition Finance Council. She led ICMA’s guidance on Blue Bonds, Sustainable Sukuk and Nature bonds, with 20+ years’ experience across Europe, the US, Asia and the GCC.
Tessa Younger leads CCLA Investment Management’s Better Environment work, overseeing stewardship on climate and nature to strengthen corporate action. She sits on the PRI’s Spring advisory committee on nature and the IIGCC UK policy group. She has shaped CCLA’s responses to consultations on Scope 3 disclosures and transport planning. Before joining CCLA in 2023, she was Head of Engagement at PIRC, leading LAPFF’s engagement and the Say on Climate initiative.
Simon Dietz is Research Director of the TPI Centre and the Grantham Research Institute, and Professor of Environmental Policy in the Department of Geography and Environment. An environmental economist, he works on climate change and sustainability. He is co-editor of the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, a Fellow of CEPR, CESifo and the Royal Society of Arts, and a former Vice President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
More about this event
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Established in June 2022, the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre (TPI Centre) is a research centre at LSE dedicated to producing independent and forward-looking research and data on the progress of corporate and sovereign entities in addressing climate change. Its work equips investors with the insights needed to encourage and support the transition to a low-carbon economy and net zero.
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