Ryerson CSR Institute Session: Sustainability.Exchange - Creating a Market for ESG Performance

This talk is co-sponsored by the Ryerson Corporate Social Responsibility Student Association, the Ryerson Commerce and Government Association, and the Ryerson Law and Business Student Association, and is supported by the Trade Commissioner Service of Global Affairs Canada.

In this presentation, the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Sustainability.Exchange will present their market driven solution for creating better, real-time and forward looking ESG ratings. They will discuss the underlying blockchain technology that powers the approach, the project’s work with the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and their plans for piloting the market with leading investors and financial institutions. A senior official from MSCI (investment data and analytics firm) will comment on MSCI’s approach to ESG ratings and climate tools.

Sustainability.Exchange is a blockchain based tokenized prediction-market for ESG ratings (http://sustainability.exchange (external link) ). The market incentivizes users to make predictions about future ESG ratings of over 1000 companies.  This activity aggregates market views on ESG performance signals, generating deep insights into company ESG performance not formerly possible. The project has been accepted to the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Green Fintech Challenge and will be piloted in 2020.

The purpose of this Ryerson CSR Institute session is to explore the feasibility of using predictive markets to incentivize better ESG data and good ESG performance, thus moving current ESG/sustainability reporting from a "looking backwards" orientation to more of a forward looking approach which should be of particular value for investors, lenders, and other stakeholders wishing to better understand future ESG/sustainability performance of companies. 

Jackie Daitchman -- after five years as an analyst on the MSCI ESG Research team, Jackie is now responsible for helping Canadian asset owner and asset manager clients integrate MSCI ESG Research into their investment decision-making processes. Previously, as Consumer Sector research lead and Canadian market research lead, Jackie conducted client training seminars and spoke at events on topics such as forced labour and climate change. Prior to joining MSCI, Jackie worked in corporate social responsibility, with a focus on the agricultural and mining industries in Latin America and West Africa. She is fluent in Spanish and French and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of South Carolina and Master of Applied Environmental Science and Management degree from Ryerson University. Jackie sits on the external advisory committee of the Ryerson University Institute for the Study of Corporate Social Responsibility and co-leads the Toronto Responsible Investment Working Group’s Climate Workstream and the Toronto Chapter of Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy (WISE). She serves as one of two Canadian representatives on the Joint Public Advisory Committee of the Canada-Chile Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

Marc Lijour is Chief Technology Officer of Sustainability.Exchange and President of Creative Emergy, a boutique consulting firm helping organizations design and implement digitization strategies. Marc contributes his consulting experience from Cisco, Savoir-faire Linux, and ConsenSys to forward-looking business initiatives. In 2017, he founded ColliderX with a team of leaders from Deloitte, Microsoft, and local startups to accelerate R&D, commercialization of new technology, and diffusion of knowledge in the Blockchain space, raising $50 million in pledges to launch a Canadian Blockchain supercluster. He designed the Blockchain Developer program for George Brown College, a first in Canada. Marc holds degrees in Mathematics, in Computer Science, and in Management (an M.B.A. from the Ryerson Ted Rogers School of Management). He serves on the board of multiple not-for-profit organizations in the Tech industry, such as the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC), which is a national centre of expertise in ICT advising the industry and several levels of government, TechConnex, and the Toronto French Business Network.

Michael Torrance is Chief Sustainability Officer of BMO Financial Group, leading strategy and implementation of sustainability governance, disclosure, engagement and innovation at BMO Financial Group. Before joining BMO Michael was a Partner at an international law firm where he spearheaded the development of a global environmental, social and sustainability governance risk advisory practice.  His experience includes application of international standards of environmental and social risk management and human rights due diligence in the corporate and banking contexts. Michael has authored widely used texts and guides on international environmental and social governance frameworks including the Equator Principles and IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability. Michael also hosts a podcast on sustainability that can be found at www.bmo.com/sustainabilityleaders (external link) .  Michael is a proud father of two and in his spare time enjoys the outdoors and travelling.