Building Bridges Event: Tools for a Nature Positive Transition

Amandine Favier is Head of the Sustainable Finance department at WWF Switzerland. In this role, she is responsible for projects that aim to improve the integration of sustainability within the decision making of banks, investors, financial supervisors and regulators. In addition, her team develops solutions for a sustainable financial center. Before joining WWF in 2012, she worked for various financial institutions. Amandine also teaches Sustainable Finance and Responsible Investments at the universities of Zürich and St. Gallen. 

Emily McKenzie is the Technical Director at the TNFD. She has worked for 20 years integrating nature in policy, finance, economics, and decision-making. Recently, she led the analytical team producing the global Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity, based at HM Treasury in the UK. Emily previously has worked on various projects, including developing the Natural Capital Protocol with the Capitals Coalition Technical Group, establishing, and leading the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University while working in WWF’s Global Science team, and designing the Environmental Land Management scheme in England while at the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’

Jeremy Eppel is a NatureFinance Principal and is the co-founder of Eppel Sustainability, a consultancy established in 2016 to help organisations tackle global sustainability challenges and secure funding. He is a member of the CBD’s Expert Panel on Resource Mobilisation for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Jeremy has advised the World Bank’s Global Wildlife Program, the Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit, UN Environment Programme, CITES and a range of non-Governmental and private sector organisations. Until 2016, Jeremy was Deputy Director International in the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). In this role, he led the UK delegation to CBD COP 11 and COP 12 and, as a member of the Bureau, co-chaired the contact group on resource mobilisation at COP 12. Jeremy also led pioneering efforts to tackle the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) through his oversight of the London and Kasane Conferences, and by funding frontline projects under the IWT Challenge Fund and the Darwin Initiative. Jeremy has almost four decades of experience advising Ministers and providing leadership in international and domestic policy making, including eight years spent as Environment Counsellor in the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD), Paris. Jeremy is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Trustee of IUCN UK and of TRAFFIC International. 

José Pugas is Partner and Head of Responsible Investments and Engagement at JGP Asset Management. He is a political scientist with over 15 years of experience in sustainability and finances, leading different projects in Brazil and LATAM. Currently, José Pugas is an active member of think tanks and international forums dedicated to discussing regenerative finances, nature-based solutions and just transition. 

Simon Pickard is an impact investor and member of Toniic’s 100% network. He chairs the Investment Committee, co-chair the Biodiversity Committee and sits on the Advisory Board for UBP’s Positive Impact equity funds, for which he also acts as an independent consultant. Simon also holds non-executive positions with Pymwymic and The First Thirty Ventures. Previously he worked in fund management for 25 years, primarily in emerging market equities 

Prof Thomas Crowther is a Welsh ecologist in the Department of Global Ecosystem Ecology at ETH Zurich, where he founded Crowther Lab, an interdisciplinary group of scientists studying global ecosystems and generating knowledge to protect biodiversity and address climate change. He serves as the chair of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration advisory board and chief scientific advisor to the UN’s Trillion Trees Campaign. Crowther is the founder of Restor, a science-based open-data platform that provides ecological insights, transparency and connectivity to conservation and restoration efforts across the globe. Restor was named a finalist for the Royal Foundation’s 2021 Earthshot Prize. Crowther has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and serves on the advisory council of WEF’s Trillion Trees initiative.

Dr. Vian Sharif’s work centres on driving the development of innovative technology solutions to catalyse the shift to more sustainable capital allocations with a focus on the natural environment. She is the founder of ESG nature insights fintech platform NatureAlpha, and heads sustainability at financial investment technology firm FNZ. Her work includes collaborating with academics at Cambridge and Oxford Universities on the development of science-based insights for investor decision-making with a focus on nature risk and impact, including the Benchmark for Nature Project, the Cambridge AI for the study of Environmental Risks Centre and as a guest researcher at the Oxford Martin School. Prior to this she spent over a decade in the global asset management industry. As part of a number of governmental and international sustainability advisory groups, she was a guest researcher at the Oxford Martin School, Member of the Taskforce for Nature Related Financial Disclosures Technical Experts Group and the U.K. Government’s Business Advisory group to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Vian holds a PhD in environmental behaviour change, and a masters degree from Cambridge University.