Energy Transition

Why organisations work with Paolo Scaroni He has run two of Europe’s largest energy companies, Enel from 2002 to 2005 and Eni from 2005 to 2014, through privatisation, restructuring and the early phase of the energy transition. He brings a working view of natural gas as a transition fuel from inside the boardrooms that bought, sold and shipped it, not from the outside as an analyst. His current chairmanship of Enel and nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co give him an unusually current read on capital allocation, M&A and governance in the European energy sector. He has sat on the boards of Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange, which gives him cross-sector reference points few energy speakers can offer. Discussions are pragmatic rather than ideological, useful for boards trying to reconcile net zero commitments with capital, supply and political reality. Biography highlights CEO of Enel from May 2002 to May 2005 and CEO of Eni from 2005 to 2014. Chairman of Enel since May 2023; Chairman of A.C. Milan since July 2018. Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co Group from May 2014 to May 2023. CEO of Pilkington plc in London from 1997 to 2002, leading the turnaround of one of the world’s largest flat glass manufacturers; earlier CEO of Techint from 1985 to 1996. Past non-executive director at Veolia Environment, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom and Assicurazioni Generali; former Vice Chairman of the London Stock Exchange. Cavaliere del Lavoro (2004) and member of the Légion d’honneur (2007); Bocconi graduate and Columbia Business School MBA. Biography European energy is being asked to do three things at once: decarbonise, stay secure and remain affordable. Few executives have made those trade-offs at the scale Paolo Scaroni has. As CEO of Enel from 2002 and then of Eni from 2005 to 2014, he ran Italy’s two largest energy companies through privatisation, restructuring and the first wave of the climate agenda. At Enel he abandoned the multi-utility model and pushed the group back into core energy, set up a dedicated wind business, and brought the company into the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. At Eni he tilted the portfolio away from oil toward natural gas, framing gas as a transition fuel, and the group’s net worth rose from EUR 39 billion to EUR 61 billion over his tenure. Eni was added to the Carbon Performance Leadership Index in 2012. After Eni he spent nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co, advising on European deals across the energy and industrial sectors, before being appointed Chairman of Enel in May 2023. He has chaired A.C. Milan since 2018, including through the club’s 2022 Scudetto and the change of ownership to RedBird Capital. Past non-executive seats at Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange give him a working view of governance across regulated industries. His public position on the energy transition is unusually direct: renewables alone will not get Europe to its CO2 targets, energy efficiency and nuclear have to be part of the answer, and gas is the realistic bridge. That argument carries weight because he had to allocate capital against it, not just write about it. Key speaking topics Energy transition and energy security Geopolitical and regulatory risk in energy markets Natural gas, nuclear and the realistic path to net zero Large-scale transformation in legacy industries Board governance and stakeholder management in regulated sectors Capital allocation in capital-intensive industries European industrial competitiveness Ideal for Boards and executive committees in energy, utilities, industrials and infrastructure CFOs, heads of strategy and corporate development weighing transition capex Investor and lender audiences focused on European energy and industrial credit Senior leadership teams reframing decarbonisation strategy against geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A grounded read on where European energy security and the transition timetable actually meet. A sharper view of how natural gas, nuclear and renewables fit together in a credible decarbonisation plan. Boardroom-tested judgement on geopolitical and regulatory risk in capital-intensive industries. A reference frame from someone who has chaired and run companies on both sides of the energy table.

Why organisations work with Nicholas Stern He authored the most influential economic study of climate change ever commissioned by a government. The Stern Review (2006) put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and reframed climate as the largest market failure in economic history. Boards and treasuries still cite it as the standard reference. He is a former Chief Economist of both the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. The institutional authority means he speaks to investment committees and finance ministries from inside their own decision frameworks. He chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE, the centre that produces the analytical work most quoted in serious climate finance and net-zero policy debate. His talks draw on its current research. He co-chaired the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, the bodies that shaped how governments and central banks now approach carbon pricing and transition finance. He is a crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords and a Companion of Honour. His arguments are taken seriously across political administrations and inside major financial institutions because they sit outside any party or commercial alignment. Biography highlights IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Lead author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (HM Treasury, 2006) Author of The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), updating the Review’s economic case for climate action two decades on Former Chief Economist of the World Bank and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service Crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords as Baron Stern of Brentford; Companion of Honour; Fellow of the Royal Society; former President of the British Academy Recipient of the Blue Planet Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Leontief Prize and the Schumpeter Award Biography For two decades, the question of whether climate action makes economic sense has shaped how governments and large financial institutions make capital decisions. The Stern Review, published by HM Treasury in 2006, is the document that gave that question its first authoritative answer. It put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and framed climate change as the largest market failure in economic history. The case it made for early action is still cited by policymakers and finance ministries today. Stern’s authority on this rests on an unusually broad institutional base. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, having previously held the same role at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He was also Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service during the period when the Review was conducted. He now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. Its analysis is the reference most often cited in serious debate over climate finance and net-zero costs. He also co-chaired the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, the latter with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Paul Polman. He sits in the UK House of Lords as a crossbench peer and was made a Companion of Honour in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a former President of the British Academy. His most recent book, The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), revisits the Review two decades on and frames climate action as the central growth opportunity of the next two decades. Key speaking topics Economics of climate change Climate risk and capital allocation Net-zero policy and the energy transition Climate finance for emerging economies Sustainable growth and economic development Policy design for the climate transition Ideal for Boards of financial institutions and large industrial firms with material climate exposure Finance ministries, central banks and senior government policymakers working on transition policy Chief sustainability officers and chief climate officers at multinational organisations Asset owners and fund managers with net-zero or transition mandates Audience outcomes An economic argument for climate action that holds up against board-level scepticism A clearer view of where capital is and is not flowing in the energy transition, and what that means for investment and policy decisions A working understanding of how carbon pricing now sits inside government and central bank thinking A defensible position on the economics of net zero that can be referenced and revisited inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Mike Kaplin Built sustainability under genuine resource constraints. The Center for Creative Ecology at Kibbutz Lotan has spent nearly three decades producing food, energy, and shelter from waste streams and brackish water in the Arava desert. Pioneering work on natural building in Israel led to the legalisation of natural building regulations there, a rare case of grassroots ecological practice changing the regulatory environment. A working demonstration site to point to: around 700 Israeli and international participants have come through the Green Apprenticeship programme since 2000, and the regenerative system can be examined in operation rather than only on paper. Integrated regenerative practice runs as one connected operation, where organic agriculture, alternative energy, natural construction, and waste management feed into each other. Biography highlights Co-founder and Director of the Center for Creative Ecology (CfCE) at Kibbutz Lotan, established in 1997. One of Israel’s first permaculturists; pioneered the country’s first recycling area. Led the natural building work that contributed to the legalisation of natural building regulations in Israel. Initiator and coordinator of the Green Apprenticeship work/study programme. Around 700 Israeli and international participants have completed it since 2000. The Center for Creative Ecology received the Israel Ministry of the Environment’s Shield award in 2000 for environmental education. Kibbutz Lotan received the Global Ecovillage Network’s Ecovillage Excellence prize in 2006. Biography Kibbutz Lotan sits in the southern Arava desert, where the founding settlers had little more than sand and brackish water to work with. The Center for Creative Ecology grew out of that constraint. Established in 1997, the CfCE has become a working centre for training, research, and demonstration in sustainability under arid conditions. Mike Kaplin co-founded it and now directs it. The work spans organic food production from composted municipal and agricultural waste, energy-efficient construction using straw bale and natural materials, water systems built around brackish irrigation, and community waste management. Every part has been built, run, refined, and documented on site. Some of the work has reshaped what Israel allows. Mike’s pioneering of natural building methods contributed to the legalisation of natural building regulations in Israel, and the recycling area he developed at Lotan was the country’s first. The CfCE received the Israel Ministry of the Environment’s Shield award in 2000 for environmental education; Kibbutz Lotan received the Global Ecovillage Network’s Ecovillage Excellence prize in 2006. Around 700 participants from Israel and overseas have come through the Green Apprenticeship programme since 2000, learning permaculture design, natural building, and community-scale sustainability on the kibbutz itself. For organisations rethinking their use of resources, Lotan offers something unusual: a board can examine operations that have run for decades, in conditions harsher than any corporate setting, and ask what transfers. Key speaking topics Permaculture design Sustainable agriculture in arid environments Natural and ecological building Community-scale waste management Organic food production from composted waste Renewable energy in desert conditions Regenerative community design Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leaders are looking for working examples of regenerative practice rather than aspirational frameworks. Boards examining what climate transition demands are at the operational level, including under genuine resource constraints. Real estate, construction, and built-environment teams interested in natural building methods and the regulatory work that legalised them in Israel. Education and learning leaders responsible for designing experiential sustainability programmes. Audience outcomes Direct examples of regenerative practice from a desert site that has run since 1997. The story behind one of Israel’s clearest cases of grassroots practice changing national regulation, via natural building. A working reference point for integrated sustainability across food, water, energy, and waste, designed as a single system. What serious sustainability looks like when supply chains and conventional inputs cannot be assumed, drawn directly from the operations Lotan has run for decades.

Why organisations work with Jonathon Porritt Three decades inside the rooms where government, business, and civil society negotiate climate policy, including nine years chairing the UK Sustainable Development Commission for three prime ministers. Co-founder of Forum for the Future, the consultancy that has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE boards on serious sustainability strategy rather than reporting compliance. Author of Capitalism as if the World Matters, a book that argues capitalism is the only viable vehicle for sustainability and sets out what reshaping it actually demands; cited as a foundational text in corporate sustainability curricula. Independence from any single corporate paymaster; willingness to tell senior teams what their own sustainability advisors will not. A long view that connects climate, biodiversity, inequality, and population; useful for boards trying to understand how environmental risks compound across a strategic horizon. Biography highlights Co-founder and Founder Director of Forum for the Future (1996-2023), one of the world’s leading sustainability charities, with offices in the UK, US, India, and Southeast Asia. Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, 2000-2009, advising the Blair and Brown governments on environmental policy. Director of Friends of the Earth (UK), 1984-1990; former Co-Chair of the UK Green Party. Co-founder of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, delivered through the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Author of Hope in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020), The World We Made (Phaidon, 2013), and Capitalism as if the World Matters (Earthscan, 2005). CBE for services to environmental protection (2000); Chancellor of Keele University, 2012-2022. Biography The corporate climate agenda has run into its first credibility test. A decade of net-zero pledges, ESG reporting, and sustainability committees has not closed the gap between what boards say and what their capital plans deliver. Porritt has spent his working life inside that gap. He co-founded Forum for the Future in 1996 with Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins, and ran it as Founder Director for nearly thirty years. Forum has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE-100 boards on the harder questions of business model change, not the softer ones of disclosure. Before that, he ran Friends of the Earth (UK) through the late 1980s and co-chaired the Green Party. For nine years he chaired the UK Sustainable Development Commission, advising Tony Blair and Gordon Brown directly. He also co-founded the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, now part of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, where senior executives go to interrogate their own sustainability strategies. Few people have spent as much time on both sides of that table. His books map the argument. Capitalism as if the World Matters made the case that capitalism is the only viable engine for a sustainable future, and set out the reforms that case requires. The World We Made imagined 2050 as if those reforms had landed. Hope in Hell, written into the climate emergency, is sharper and more impatient. Read together, they explain why he is taken seriously by chief executives and climate activists alike, even when he is telling each of them something they would rather not hear. Key speaking topics Sustainability strategy and ESG governance Climate risk and the energy transition Reforming capitalism for environmental limits Net-zero credibility and corporate accountability Long-term scenario planning and systems change Biodiversity, nature, and business Intergenerational responsibility and the next decade Ideal for Board directors and CEOs reviewing the credibility of their net-zero and ESG commitments Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads building serious, board-ready strategy Investor relations and capital allocation teams under increasing scrutiny on transition planning Strategy and risk leaders trying to integrate climate and biodiversity into long-range planning Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where their own organisation’s climate strategy is exposed to investor, regulator, and employee scrutiny A working understanding of what credible, board-level sustainability looks like beyond reporting compliance A sharper sense of how climate, biodiversity, inequality, and capital allocation compound as connected risks Direct, unflattering challenge from someone with no commercial interest in their answer

Why organisations work with John Sitilides He has trained the U.S. diplomats who execute American policy in southern Europe, chairing the State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006. That insider vantage point is rare on a corporate stage. He has consulted to the State Department under four U.S. presidential administrations across both parties, which gives boards a reading of Washington that is not tied to one political cycle. His Foreign Policy Research Institute work, including bylined analyses on NATO and the alliance’s posture toward Russia, gives investment committees a defensible framework for European and transatlantic exposure. He translates trade, energy, technology, and security flashpoints into specific commercial implications for capital allocation, supply chains, and regulatory strategy, rather than offering broad commentary. He is a working operator inside Washington as Principal of Trilogy Advisors, so his read on regulatory and political risk is sourced from current client work, not retrospective analysis. Biography highlights Principal, Trilogy Advisors LLC, Washington D.C., advising on U.S. government affairs, regulatory reform, and geopolitical risk. Senior Fellow, National Security Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute. Chair of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program for Southeast Europe under government contract since 2006. Founder of the Western Policy Center; negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, then chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. Regular geopolitical commentator on Bloomberg, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, Newsmax, and NewsNation, with commentary cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, NPR, and South China Morning Post. Master’s degree, International and Public Affairs, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Biography The U.S. trained the diplomats running its Southern Europe portfolio inside the Foreign Service Institute. The chair of that Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006, under State Department contract, is John Sitilides. That role sits behind almost everything else he does on a public stage. His day job is Principal at Trilogy Advisors LLC in Washington, where he advises on U.S. government affairs, regulatory strategy, and geopolitical risk. He is also a Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where his recent bylined work has tracked NATO’s posture and the alliance agenda heading into successive summits. Earlier, he founded the Western Policy Center, a Washington research organisation tracking U.S., NATO, and EU interests in southeastern Europe. He negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. He has testified before Congress, contributed chapters to volumes published by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Committee and the Italian think tank ISPI, and is cited regularly across the major U.S. broadcast networks and the international financial press. For a corporate audience, the value is the synthesis. He sits inside the Washington policy machine, trains the people who run U.S. diplomacy in a critical region, and writes for serious foreign policy outlets. When he speaks to a board, the analysis is sourced from that day’s working environment. Key speaking topics U.S. foreign policy and great power competition Geopolitical and geo-economic risk for global business Trade, technology, and energy security NATO, Europe, and transatlantic relations Washington political risk and U.S. government affairs The Indo-Pacific and U.S.-China strategic competition Ideal for Corporate boards and CEO advisory sessions setting global strategy under geopolitical uncertainty Investment committees, asset managers, and CIO offices pricing political and policy risk Policy, government affairs, and risk leaders briefing executive teams on Washington decisions Industry conferences in financial services, energy, defence, and technology that need a credentialled Washington voice Audience outcomes A working framework for reading U.S. foreign policy signals and translating them into commercial decisions A current view of great power competition between the United States, China, and Russia and what it means for trade, technology, and energy positioning A clearer read on Washington’s regulatory and policy direction across administrations, not tied to one political cycle Specific implications for capital allocation, market entry, and supply chain exposure in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East Confidence that the analysis is sourced from active policy and diplomatic practice, not commentary at a distance

Why organisations work with Javier Solana Very few people alive have run both NATO and the EU’s foreign policy machinery. His read on transatlantic, Russian and Chinese intent is grounded in a decade of handling the actual files, not in commentary. He was the signing hand on the 2003 European Security Strategy, the document that still frames how European governments think about security, neighbourhood and partnership. Leadership teams exposed to European regulation get the logic from the source. His current work at EsadeGeo and Brookings is forward looking, not memoir. Briefings engage with AI governance, supply chain fragmentation, climate diplomacy and the fragility of the rules based order. He is a working columnist at Project Syndicate, publishing into 2026 on US-China competition, European strategic autonomy and the future of multilateralism. Boards get a current thesis, not career recollections. He operates comfortably as a counterpart to a CEO, chair or sovereign, and speaks to leadership teams on that level. The register is peer to peer, not lecture. Biography highlights Secretary General of NATO, 1995 to 1999, including the alliance’s first post-Cold War enlargement and the 1999 Kosovo campaign. European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the EU, 1999 to 2009. Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to 1995, and earlier holder of the Culture and Education and Science portfolios under Felipe Gonzalez. President, EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona and Madrid. Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin. Charlemagne Prize 2007 and Carlos V European Award 2011 for services to European integration. Biography The European Security Strategy was signed in Brussels in December 2003. It was the first time the Union had put its name to a single, coherent description of what it was for in the world, what it was willing to defend, and how it intended to act with partners. Solana drafted it. Much of the architecture that European governments, and the companies that operate across them, still live inside was laid down in that document. Before Brussels, there was Kosovo. As Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999, he held together a nineteen-member alliance through the most contested military operation in its history, while also overseeing its first enlargement since the Cold War. Before NATO, he had spent thirteen years in the Spanish cabinet under Felipe Gonzalez, including three years as Foreign Minister. The arc is unusual: national politics, military alliance, civilian foreign policy, all at the top of each. He now runs EsadeGeo, the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics he founded in Barcelona and Madrid in 2010, and is a Distinguished Fellow at Brookings and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He chairs Aspen Institute Espana and sits on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Crisis Group. What he offers a leadership audience is not the memoir of the files he handled. It is a structural read of where the international order is breaking, where it is holding, and what boards and executive teams should be doing with that information before the next shock lands on the balance sheet. Key speaking topics The future of the rules based international order Transatlantic relations and European strategic autonomy US-China competition and the implications for global business Geopolitics of the energy transition and climate diplomacy NATO, European security and the war in Ukraine Multilateralism and global governance reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the US and China CEOs, chairs and chief strategy officers setting five to ten year strategic plans under geopolitical uncertainty Senior policy, risk and government affairs leads at financial institutions, energy and industrial groups Audience outcomes A working model of which pillars of the international order are cracking, which are holding, and where corporate risk actually sits. A sharper read on European policy intent on China, industrial strategy, energy and sanctions, from the person who helped write the doctrine. Concrete framing on what transatlantic drift and US-China competition mean for supply chains, capital allocation and market access. A sense of how peers at the sovereign and multilateral level are framing the same questions your board is wrestling with.

Why organisations work with Heinz-Harald Frentzen Ten seasons in Formula One across Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows give him a first-hand account of how winning operations differ from losing ones at the same level of talent and budget. He finished second in the 1997 Drivers’ Championship and third in 1999 with Jordan, in both cases against better-resourced rivals. The lesson he carries into a room is about execution, not hierarchy. His HHF hybrid racing project, which completed the first fully electric lap of the Nordschleife at the 2008 Nurburgring 24 Hours, gives him a credible voice on sustainable engineering as a performance problem, not a compliance one. He is comfortable in both motivational and technical registers, which is unusual for an ex-driver. Engineering and R&D audiences get substance; commercial audiences get the human story behind it. Biography highlights Formula One driver from 1994 to 2003 for Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows. Runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship with Williams. Three Grand Prix wins: San Marino 1997, French 1999 and Italian 1999. Finished third in the 1999 Drivers’ Championship with Jordan on 54 points, with two wins and six podiums. Conceived and built the HHF hybrid race car, which recorded the first electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the 2008 24 Hours race. Winner of the ROC Legends Cup at the 2011 Race of Champions; raced in DTM from 2004 to 2006 and competed at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans with Aston Martin Racing. Biography The 1997 San Marino Grand Prix was Frentzen’s first Formula One victory. It came in his debut season at Williams, against a teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, who would take the title that year. He finished the season second in the championship. It is the decision-making that sits underneath a result like that, not the result itself, that organisations bring him in to talk about. Across a decade in Formula One with Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows, Frentzen operated inside five different team cultures. Some produced wins with fewer resources. Some did not. His vantage point is not the champion’s, which is often misread as pure individual brilliance. It is the vantage point of a driver who watched up close what separates a team that executes from one that does not. His most distinctive post-racing work is the HHF hybrid project. Using a Gumpert Apollo chassis and a battery system he developed himself, he completed the first fully electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife at the 2008 24 Hours, co-driving with Dirk Muller. Gearbox failures kept the car out of the classification, but the hybrid powertrain finished the race. It is one of the earlier serious attempts to treat electrification as a performance engineering problem in endurance racing. That combination of cockpit experience and hands-on technical development is what he draws on now. Audiences get a specific account of how sharp teams make sharp decisions under time pressure, and what it takes to keep a programme moving when the technology, the strategy and the people all have to improve at once. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership lessons from Formula One Sustainable engineering and hybrid technology Resilience and focus in elite performance Risk, trust and communication in high-stakes environments Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays focused on performance culture Engineering, R&D and innovation functions in automotive, mobility and advanced manufacturing Sales kick-offs and annual conferences wanting a credible motorsport voice alongside business content After-dinner and gala audiences where racing pedigree adds weight to the evening Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how elite motorsport teams align driver, engineer and strategist in real time A sharper view of what separates teams that execute under pressure from teams that do not Useable lessons on focus, preparation and trust, grounded in named races and named teams A credible perspective on hybrid and electrified engineering as a performance discipline, not a compliance exercise

Key speaking topics European energy policy Climate policy and global climate governance Energy transition and utilities regulation EU legislative processes and institutions Agricultural and fisheries policy International development cooperation Ideal for Energy and utilities leaders Policy and regulatory affairs professionals Sustainability and climate strategy teams Public sector and EU-focused organisations Audience outcomes Clear understanding of European energy and climate policy frameworks Insight into EU decision-making and regulatory processes Perspective on integrating climate priorities into national and international policy Practical context on energy transition from a policymaker’s standpoint Why organisations work with Dan Jørgensen Direct experience shaping European energy and climate policy. Senior leadership roles across national government and EU institutions. First-hand knowledge of regulatory, legislative and international policy environments. Ability to translate complex policy frameworks into structured, accessible insight for senior audiences. Biography Dan Jørgensen brings senior-level experience from both European and national government, with direct responsibility for energy, climate and housing policy at the highest level of the European Union. As European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, he works at the centre of EU decision-making on energy systems, market design and climate strategy. His ministerial leadership in Denmark spans climate, energy and utilities, development cooperation and global climate policy, and food, agriculture and fisheries. These portfolios place him at the intersection of environmental policy, economic priorities and international cooperation. Earlier in his career, he served as a Member of the European Parliament, including as Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. This role provided extensive experience of EU legislative processes, regulatory frameworks and cross-party negotiation at European level. In addition to his public office, Dan Jørgensen is an author on climate policy and European affairs, including Grønt håb – Klimapolitik 2.0. His work reflects a sustained focus on climate governance and the evolution of European policy. For organisations navigating regulatory change, energy transition and European policy complexity, he offers first-hand insight into how climate and energy decisions are shaped at both national and EU level.

Why organisations work with Chris Goodall His book Possible: Ways to Net Zero provides a sector-by-sector analysis of 16 specific technical challenges – from green hydrogen storage to decarbonising steel and cement – giving executive teams a structured, evidence-based account of what net zero delivery actually requires, not just what it aspires to. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, advising institutional capital on the technologies he researches and writes about – his perspective is shaped by what serious investors are actually backing, not by policy advocacy. Carbon Commentary – his long-running newsletter, part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked real-world clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. Executives and investors treat it as a check on sector claims rather than a source of promotional commentary. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was named an FT Books of the Year, establishing a track record of translating complex energy systems into analysis that serious non-specialist audiences can act on. He covers hard-to-abate sectors – aviation, agriculture, heavy industry – where most advisers produce high-level ambition; Goodall engages with specific technologies and deployment realities. Biography highlights Author of seven books on energy and climate published over 17 years, with Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024) as the most recent Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate named an FT Books of the Year What We Need to Do Now shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation Member of the Advisory Board, Pictet Clean Energy Fund, Geneva Publisher of Carbon Commentary – long-running energy transition newsletter and website, part of the Guardian Environment Network Contributor to The Guardian, The Independent and The Ecologist Alumnus of the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business School (MBA) Biography Chris Goodall has spent nearly two decades tracking the energy transition – not as a trend to describe, but as a set of specific, solvable technical and economic problems. His most recent book, Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024), takes that argument to its logical conclusion: mapping 16 distinct challenges on the path to carbon neutrality, from the decarbonisation of steel and cement to green hydrogen storage and climate-resilient agriculture. That analytical discipline is tested against real capital. Goodall sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, where institutional investors are deploying money into the technologies he researches. It is a position that keeps his work anchored in what is commercially viable now, rather than what might be viable in a decade. Most energy transition commentary collapses that distinction. His Carbon Commentary platform – part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. It has earned a readership among executives and investors precisely because it does not represent a corporate or consultancy position. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was an FT Books of the Year; What We Need to Do Now was shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Goodall read at the University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He brings to board-level audiences something the energy transition conversation rarely produces: an independent, data-grounded account of what is technically and financially achievable – and what is not. Key speaking topics Net zero pathways and energy system transformation Decarbonisation technologies: hydrogen, storage, renewables deployment Hard-to-abate sectors: steel, cement, aviation, agriculture Clean energy investment and technology readiness Climate policy, regulation and corporate strategy Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure Grid infrastructure and the limits of the energy transition Ideal for Boards and executive teams building credible net zero strategies Energy, infrastructure and sustainability investors Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leaders in energy-intensive industries Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads navigating the capital implications of decarbonisation Audience outcomes A clearer picture of which decarbonisation technologies are deployment-ready and which remain speculative A realistic, sector-specific understanding of what net zero delivery actually requires operationally Greater confidence in evaluating clean energy investment claims against independent evidence Insight into the policy and regulatory risks shaping energy transition timelines A framework for moving from corporate climate ambition to credible, technology-grounded action

Why organisations work with Charlie Luxton He runs a working practice, Charlie Luxton Design, whose built work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust Passivhaus scheme, so his sustainability argument is grounded in projects he has actually delivered, not a consultancy deck. Two decades of mainstream broadcasting on More4, Channel 5, and BBC platforms have trained him to explain embodied carbon, retrofit, and energy performance to non-specialist audiences without losing technical substance. He speaks credibly across the full stack of a property or ESG conversation: design, materials, regulation, occupant behaviour, and cost, which is unusual for a single speaker. He is a comfortable host and awards presenter as well as a keynote voice, so clients running built-environment or sustainability conferences can use him in more than one role across an event. His perspective is practitioner-first: what works on a real site in the UK climate, at a realistic budget, with real trades and supply chains, which senior buyers in property, construction, and corporate real estate recognise as scarce. Biography highlights Director of Charlie Luxton Design, an Oxfordshire architectural practice focused on energy-efficient residential work. BA in Architecture, Oxford Brookes University; MA, Royal College of Art, London. Lead presenter on More4’s Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea, and presenter on Channel 5’s Build a New Life in the Country. Architect for the Hook Norton Community Land Trust, a twelve-home Passivhaus-standard community-led housing scheme. Co-author with Sally Bevan of Restored to Glory (BBC Books, 2005), the book accompanying the BBC restoration series. Has delivered talks through professional bodies including RIBA Gloucestershire on embodied carbon in buildings. Biography The built environment is responsible for a significant share of global carbon emissions, and the gap between pledges and delivered projects is where most organisations are now stuck. Architects who actually build at that intersection, and who can describe the work in plain language, are rare. That is the space Charlie Luxton occupies. He runs Charlie Luxton Design from North Oxfordshire, a practice dedicated to energy-efficient homes that use local materials and respond to local climate. The studio’s work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust scheme, twelve Passivhaus-standard homes developed with a community-led trust in the village where the practice is based. It is a concrete example of the low-energy, community-scale housing model the sustainability conversation often describes in the abstract. Alongside the practice, he has spent more than twenty years on UK television, presenting Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea for More4 and Build a New Life in the Country for Channel 5, with earlier credits including BBC Three’s Dreamspaces. That broadcasting background is why organisations book him: he can take a technical topic like embodied carbon or retrofit and hold a general audience without simplifying the substance. He trained at Oxford Brookes and the Royal College of Art and co-authored Restored to Glory with Sally Bevan for BBC Books. For corporate audiences this produces something specific. Real-estate, construction, and ESG conversations often split between policy speakers who have not built anything and technical specialists who cannot hold a room. Luxton bridges the two, which is useful when a leadership team has committed to a sustainability target and now has to make decisions about what they actually build or lease. Key speaking topics Sustainable architecture and low-carbon buildings Embodied carbon and the built environment Retrofit, energy performance, and the existing UK housing stock Passivhaus and community-led housing Design, materials, and local climate The future of construction Property, homes, and how people live Ideal for Property, construction, and real-estate leadership audiences setting net-zero and retrofit strategy ESG, sustainability, and corporate real-estate teams inside large corporates Housing associations, local authorities, and community trusts working on low-carbon housing delivery Built-environment conferences and awards requiring a credible host with technical authority Audience outcomes A clear read on where embodied and operational carbon actually sit in a building project, and which decisions move the number. A practical sense of what Passivhaus, retrofit, and low-energy design look like once built, drawn from delivered UK projects. Confidence to interrogate sustainability claims made by designers, developers, and suppliers in their own supply chain. A more realistic view of cost, trade-offs, and timescales in low-carbon building, as opposed to the brochure version.

Why organisations work with Carl Bildt He negotiated the Dayton Peace Accords as EU Special Envoy and went on to serve as the first High Representative in Bosnia. Few speakers have personally built a post-war political settlement from the inside. He has run a European country, then run its foreign policy through the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Arab Spring and the launch of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The view from a head of government and a foreign minister, in the same career, is rare on the geopolitics circuit. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, the largest pan-European foreign policy network. Briefings are informed by a continent-wide research operation, not one capital’s perspective. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post and is widely cited on Ukraine, Russia, China and transatlantic strategy. Audiences get the published thinker, not a generic former politician. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was its first non-US trustee, giving him a working relationship with the US strategic research establishment that most European speakers do not have. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991 to 1994. Foreign Minister of Sweden, 2006 to 2014. EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia and co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference, 1995. First High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 to 1997. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, 1999 to 2001. Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations. Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation. Senior Adviser to the Wallenberg Foundations. Author, “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Columnist for Project Syndicate, contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Biography The European security order that boards have priced into their strategy for thirty years is being rewritten in real time. Ukraine, sanctions regimes, US policy swings and renewed Chinese pressure are no longer foreign-affairs reading. They feed directly into capital allocation, country risk and supply chain decisions in Berlin, Paris, London and Stockholm. Carl Bildt has watched this shift from inside the rooms where it has been argued out. As Prime Minister of Sweden in the early 1990s, he led the negotiation of Sweden’s accession to the European Union. As EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, he co-chaired the Dayton Peace Conference and then served as the first High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building a peace settlement on the ground. Returning to office as Foreign Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, he was one of the architects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and a vocal European voice through Russia’s war in Georgia and the early years of the Ukraine crisis. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, and writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post. His “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” remains one of the few first-person accounts of building a post-war political order in Europe. Audiences book him for what that experience yields now: a direct, unsentimental read on Russia, the transatlantic relationship and the trajectory of the European project under pressure. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and the future of the EU The transatlantic relationship and US foreign policy Russia, Ukraine and the post-1989 security order China and the global rules-based system Sanctions, political risk and country exposure Post-conflict diplomacy and peace negotiation Northern European and Nordic political economy Ideal for Board and executive team off-sites where geopolitical risk has become a strategic variable International banks, asset managers and insurers reviewing country and sanctions exposure Industrial and energy groups with material exposure to Europe, Russia, Ukraine or China Public affairs, policy and government relations leadership in multinationals Audience outcomes A current, named read on Russia, Ukraine and the trajectory of European security from someone who has been in the room. A clearer view of how transatlantic policy shifts under successive US administrations translate into European corporate exposure. A working framework for thinking about sanctions, energy and supply chain risk through a geopolitical, not just regulatory, lens. A sense of where the EU is going as a foreign and security actor, from a head of government who negotiated his country into it.

Why organisations work with Bertrand Piccard The Solar Impulse Foundation’s portfolio of more than 1,000 independently certified, profitable environmental solutions gives organisations a verified, searchable evidence base – not an aspiration but a commercially assessed library of technologies available today, spanning energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry. His “qualitative growth” framework – articulated in his book RÉALISTE – gives leaders a specific language for presenting sustainability to boards, investors, and governments as a source of economic development rather than a compliance cost. Few speakers can point to a named framework, a published thesis, and twenty years of testing it with heads of state and global executives. As a trained psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the structural reason sustainability arguments fail at decision-making level: not a lack of belief, but the absence of a financial narrative that aligns with existing incentive structures. His diagnosis is precise – and so is the alternative he offers. His advisory roles – Special Advisor to the European Commission and member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council – provide direct intelligence on the regulatory and financial frameworks that will shape corporate energy transition decisions this decade. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight covered 43,000 km on commercially available solar technology alone. Organisations working through assumptions about what clean energy can realistically deliver hear this not as a metaphor but as an audit: the gap between what these technologies can do and what most boards believe they can do is not a future problem. Biography highlights Completed the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, Breitling Orbiter 3, with Brian Jones (1999) – the longest flight in aviation history by both distance and duration at that time Co-initiated and piloted Solar Impulse: the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the globe (2016, 43,000 km, zero fuel), with André Borschberg Founder and Chairman, Solar Impulse Foundation – has certified more than 1,000 clean and profitable environmental solutions via the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label UN Champions of the Earth Award (2012, UNEP); UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment; Special Advisor to the European Commission; member, European Investment Bank Climate and Environment Advisory Council Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2018); Harmon Trophy; FAI Gold Air Medal; holds 22 FAI world records in solar and electric aviation categories Author of RÉALISTE, The Greatest Adventure, and Changer d’Altitude; keynote speaker at the United Nations, World Economic Forum, TED, and major UN Climate Change Conferences Biography The argument Bertrand Piccard has advanced for two decades is specific: ecology and economy are not opposites. Clean technology is where the next generation of industrial value is being created. His Solar Impulse Foundation has certified more than 1,000 profitable environmental solutions – available today – to demonstrate that the energy transition is already a market, not a future aspiration. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight – 43,000 km with zero fuel, completed with André Borschberg in 2016 – was designed to carry a message as much as a pilot. When Piccard landed in Abu Dhabi, the point was not the distance but the technology: every solar system and electric motor that had just circled the planet was commercially available. Most organisations had simply not been shown a coherent financial case for using it. That case is the work of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which Piccard founded and chairs. The Foundation’s Efficient Solution Label certifies technologies, products, and processes across energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry – providing governments, corporations, and investors with a vetted evidence base for capital and policy decisions. His advisory roles extend this work directly into policy: he is Special Advisor to the European Commission and a member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council, positions that give him current intelligence on the regulatory environment shaping energy transition this decade. Trained as a psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the precise reason sustainability strategies fail at board level: the financial argument is missing. His book RÉALISTE sets out the case for his named framework – “qualitative growth” – as a practical alternative to both degrowth and unlimited consumption. The Climate Impulse project, a hydrogen-powered aircraft designed for a non-stop round-the-world flight, is his current proof-of-concept: another first, built to demonstrate what the next generation of clean technology can already do. Key speaking topics Clean technology and the commercial case for energy transition Qualitative growth: sustainability as an economic strategy The Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label and cleantech certification Climate policy, regulation, and the role of business Mission-driven leadership and the explorer’s mindset The psychology of organisational change and resistance to transition Hydrogen and the future of sustainable aviation Ideal for Boards and C-suites working through the commercial and investment case for energy transition Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads under pressure to translate environmental commitments into language investors and boards will act on Government and policy audiences involved in clean energy planning, regulatory design, or climate target-setting Global executive leadership summits where the intersection of sustainability, growth strategy, and industrial policy is on the agenda Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of the sustainability-profitability relationship – with a specific named framework, “qualitative growth,” that can be used internally to move the conversation forward Awareness of a verified portfolio of more than 1,000 commercially available clean technologies, and how the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label works as a practical decision-making tool A clear diagnosis of why sustainability arguments typically fail at board and investment level – and what to substitute for the standard cost-and-compliance framing Insight into the European and global regulatory and financial architecture that will shape energy transition investment decisions over the next decade A more precise distinction between sustainability as an organisational cost and sustainability as a source of new industrial markets – presented with the proof points to make that argument to investors, regulators, and governments