About UNEP FI

Steering Committee

The UNEP FI Steering Committee is composed of thirteen signatory, working group, and regional task force representatives, and one UNEP representative. Signatory representatives are elected for two year terms by the UNEP FI membership in an open election process. Working Group and Regional Task Force representatives are selected for one year terms by their respective groups.

The Chair is elected to a one year term by the Steering Committee. Steering Committee members can serve for a maximum of two consecutive years.

Steering Committee Members

• UNEP FI Chair
• Robert Tacon, Senior Advisor, Sustainability, Standard Chartered plc
• UNEP Representative
• 
  Sylvie Lemmet, Director, Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics (DTIE) (Paris, France)

  In January 2007 Sylvie Lemmet has been appointed Director of the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE), based in Paris.

  Ms. Lemmet is a graduate of the French Ecole Nationale d’Administration and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University as well as a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales. She brings to UNEP a wealth of managerial and technical expertise, spanning many years working with the private sector, NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières.

  She brings more than 10 years of expertise in the field of environment, implementing major sustainable development projects in the World Bank and evaluating environmental policies as a Senior Auditor with the French Cour des Comptes. During her tenure, she participated in the audit of the UN.

  Ms Lemmet is a French national.

• UNEP FI Treasurer
• 
  Paul A. Hilton, Director, Advanced Equities Research & Portfolio Manager, Calvert Group (Bethesda, Maryland, USA)

  Paul has been a member of the UNEP FI Steering Committee since August 2007 and served as Co-Chair of the Asset Management Working Group from 2007 to mid-April 2009. He is the Director, Advanced Equities Research at Calvert, a Bethesda, Maryland based investment company focusing on sustainable and responsible investment. In this position, Paul examines the relationship of social, environmental, and governance factors to financial performance in order to provide insight to Calvert investment portfolios. Prior to joining Calvert, Mr. Hilton was Portfolio Manager, Socially Responsible Investing at The Dreyfus Corporation. Mr. Hilton has also served as a research analyst in the Social Awareness Investment (SAI) program at Smith Barney Asset Management. He is co-founder of SIRAN, the Social Investment Research Analyst Network, a group of U.S. analysts working to promote dialogue with companies about corporate responsibility. He has been with Calvert since August 2005 and has held his current position since May 2007.

• Open Positions
• 
  Paul Turner, Head of Sustainable Development, Lloyds TSB Group plc (London, UK)

  Paul has been a member of the UNEP FI Steering Committee since November 2007.

  Paul Turner has worked for the majority of his career in structured finance where his last role was Managing Director of Lloyds TSB’s transportation finance businesses. Paul is passionate about the environment and describes his current role as Head of Sustainable Development for Lloyds TSB's Wholesale Markets as a ‘corporate ecologist’. His responsibilities involve staff engagement, leadership development, risk management and businesses development - in essence making sustainable development part of the business DNA. He is a member of the UK Corporate Leaders Group in Climate Change, a member of the Small Business Consortium, a Trustee of Global Action Plan and a member of Lloyds TSB's Corporate Responsibility Steering Group and Carbon Reduction Task Force.

• Sean Silvey, Head of Environmental Sustainability, ANZ
• Bien Subiantoro, Director of Small, Medium & Shariah Business, PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI)
• Working Group Representatives
• Asset Management Working Group
  Gianluca Manca, Head of SRI, Global Head of Non-Profit Business, Eurizon Capital (Intesa Sanpaolo Group) (Milan, Italy)

  Gianluca has been a member of the Asset Management Working Group since inception in 2003 and became chairman of the group in 2009, when he joined the Steering Committee. Gianluca is Head of Sustainability and Global Non-Profit Business at Eurizon Capital, an Intesa Sanpaolo company. He has been a fixed income derivatives broker and an international equities fund manager; he focussed on socially responsible investments in 1999 and became head of the SRI team in 2002. Gianluca is the CSR delegate at Eurizon Capital, a member of the Sustainability Committee and the chair of the Charity Committee.

• Asset Management Working Group
  Julie Fox Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing, Pax World Management Corp. (Portsmouth, NH, USA)

  Julie Fox Gorte is the Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World Management Corporation. She oversees environmental, social, and governance-related research on prospective and current investments as well as Pax’s shareholder advocacy and work on public policy advocacy.

  Prior to joining Pax, Dr. Gorte served as Vice President and Chief Social Investment Strategist at Calvert. Her experience before she joined the investment world in 1999 includes nearly 14 years as Senior Associate and Project Director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Vice President for Economic and Environmental Research at The Wilderness Society, Program Manager for Technology Programs in the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy office, and Senior Associate at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. Dr. Gorte received her Bachelor of Science in Forest Management at Northern Arizona University, and a Master of Science and Ph.D from Michigan State in resource economics.

  Dr. Gorte serves on the boards of Ceres, the Center for a New American Dream, the Endangered Species Coalition, and the Pinchot Institute. She had previously served as the Co-Chair of the UNEP FI Asset Management Working Group, and is a member of the Forest Economics and Policy Program’s advisory panel at Resources for the Future.

• Climate Change Working Group
  Armin Sandhoevel, CEO Allianz Climate Solutions, Allianz Dresdner Bank (Munich, Germany)

  Armin is on the Climate Change Working Group since its start in 2001 and became chairman of the group in 2005. Since 2008 he is co-chairing the Working Group. Armin is CEO of Allianz Climate Solutions, a 100% subsidiary of the private equity division of Allianz SE. Allianz Climate Solutions is the competence center for climate change and investment manager as well as service provider regarding risk analysis and insurance solutions for renewable energy investments. From 2001 until 2007 he worked for Dresdner Bank AG as Head of Carbon Risk / Center of Competence Renewable Energies.

• Climate Change Working Group
  Claire Boasson, Sustainability Project Manager, Caisse des Dépôts

  Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) joined the Climate Change Working Group in January 2007 and Claire became co-chair of the group in 2008.

  Within CDC, Claire's focus is on climate change policy, carbon finance and the integration of climate related impacts in investment decisions, both in listed equity and private equity investment. She has been running Caisse des Dépôts' programme 'Horizon Climat', to assess and reduce CO2 emissions for 3 years and managed CDC emissions offset since 2006.

  Alongside her role as co-chair of the Climate Change Working Group, Claire occasionally collaborates with UNEP FI’s Africa Taskforce and participated in UNEP FI’s 2008 West Africa Roundtable on Sustainable Finance in Nigeria.

• Insurance Working Group
  Catherine Boiteux-Pelletier, Group Head-Sustainable Development, AXA (Paris, France)

  Catherine Boiteux is an inaugural Co-Chair of the Insurance Working Group, established in 2006. Since 2004, she reinforced AXA's presence to UNEP FI through active participation in several working groups and supported the project of a separate Working Group to address environmental issues specific to insurance. She is a strong advocate for the business case for sustainability in the insurance sector and she supports this purpose in several organizations. She is responsible for coordinating AXA's sustainability strategy groupwide. She has held her current position since 2004.

• Property Working Group
  Blaise Desbordes, Project Director, Sustainable Development Department, Caisse des Dépôts (Paris, France)

  Blaise was on the Responsible Property Investment Working Group for the last 2 years, and became its co-chair in October 2007.

  He is in charge of sustainable real estate and sustainable urban policies among the Caisse des Dépôts Group, which is a main public long term investor in France, especially involved in social housing and sustainable neighborhoods issue. Blaise has been in the Company for 5 years, and professionally dealing for 15 years with sustainability issues.

• Property Working Group
  Paul McNamara, Director of Research OBE, Prudential Plc (London, UK)
• Regional Task Force Representatives
• Africa Task Force
  Cas Coovadia, Managing Director, Banking Council of South Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa)

  Cas is also the Co Chair of the UNEP FI ATF as well as the Chair of the National Business Initiative (NBI), which is the African Representative of World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

• Asia Pacific Task Force
  Damien Walsh, General Manager Corporate Services, mecu Limited (Melbourne Australia)

  Damien has participated in the UNEP FI Asia Pacific Task Force, the Australasian Group and Asia Pacific Task Force Outreach Group since 2004. He joined the UNEP FI Finance and Water work stream in 2006. Damien is the General Manager for mecu Limited and is responsible for Finance, Information Technology, Human Resources, Property, Administration and is the Company Secretary. His role includes oversight of mecu’s Sustainability Covenant with EPA Victoria and as mecu’s signatory representative with UNEP FI. Damien has worked in the Australian Credit Union industry for twenty years. Highlights have included attendance at the UNEP FI 2006 AGM in Geneva, moderating a session at the 2007 UNEP FI Global Roundtable in Melbourne on "Sustainable Retail Banking - Push or Pull" and in particular attending and presenting at the 2005 UNEP FI Global Roundtable, United Nations New York.

• Central and Eastern Europe Task Force
  Silvia Scopelliti, Intesa San Paolo, Italy
• Latin America Task Force
  Chris Wells, Environmental Risk Manager, Banco Real, Santander Group

  Chris Wells has headed the São Paulo-based sustainability risk unit for Banco Real, part of the Santander Group, since joining the bank in 2002. He is Chair of the Latin American Task Force, which has been training banks in the region about sustainability since 2005. Prior to joining Banco Real, he set up an environmental and social research service at Unibanco. Prior to joining Unibanco in 1998, he was executive director of Cempre, an association that promotes waste recycling in Brazil. He is President of the Round Table on Responsible Soy Association.

• North America Task Force
  Sandra Odendahl, Director, Corporate Environmental Affairs, Royal Bank of Canada

  Sandra Odendahl is Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs at RBC Financial Group, where she leads a team with responsibility for corporate environmental strategy, environmental credit risk policies, and corporate environmental programs at the bank. Sandra first joined RBC in 1997 as a resource sector analyst, and then from March 2000 to August 2005 she was the head of RBC’s Environmental Risk Management department. Sandra left RBC in September 2005 for 2 years at CIBC, leading their Corporate Environmental program, before returning to RBC in September 2007 to take the newly created position of Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs.

  Prior to entering the banking sector, RBC, Sandra was an environmental consultant in Toronto and Vancouver, specializing in Environmental Impact Assessments for resource sector development projects in Canada and Indonesia.

  Sandra has chaired the North American Task Force of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) since January 2006. She was formerly the Co-Chair of the Conference Board’s Business Council on Sustainability and was a member of the Commodities Research Advisory Panel for the Conference Board’s "Canada Project". She is on the Advisory Board of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto and the Board of Directors of the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy.

• North America Task Force
  Richard Pearl, Vice President and Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, State Street Corporation

  Richard is the co-chair of the North American Task Force and has been a member of the UNEP FI Steering Committee since January 2008. From 2006-08, he served on the UNEP FI/ Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Working Group, which developed the Financial Service Sector Supplement to the GRI.

  Richard is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Officer for State Street Corporation and a Vice President in its Community Affairs department. Among his responsibilities are managing State Street’s CSR Working Group, overseeing the production of the company’s annual CSR report, and working with internal and external stakeholder groups on CSR issues. He is the primary advisor to State Street’s Environmental Sustainability Committee.