Chandru Badrinarayanan, Climate Change, and ESG Strategist
He is also a part of the technical working group on Sustainable Finance regulations constituted by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
Podcast
Overview
The environmental crisis is bringing massive destruction to the lives of the people. We are in constant need of solutions to sustain the environment. One of the unfortunate consequences of the environmental crisis is climate change. Fortunately, there still are people like Chandru Badrinarayanan, who are working towards the goal of restoring what we have lost.
Chandru Badrinarayanan is an ESG and Climate change strategist. He is the managing partner of ECube Investment Advisors Pvt. Ltd. He is also the first person from India to Become a member of the Global Policy and Reference Group of the UNPRI. While our host Mr. Ashutosh Garg and our guest Mr. Chandru Badrinarayanan discuss climate change, we get to know about a lot that is going on and we are unaware of it.
Discussion
Challenges faced by us due to climate change
Mr. Badrinarayanan, while sharing his thoughts on this topic, tells us that the major issues we face due to climate change are depletion of air quality around the world, extreme weather changes, floods, landslides, forest fires, etc. He adds that a massive calamity that is now becoming prominent in Siberia and northern regions is permafrost melting. Permafrost is leading to infrastructure damage and also releasing carbon in abundance.
These challenges manifest into a scarcity of resources like food shortage, water scarcity, energy scarcity which further results in poor health, lack of nutrition in kids, etc.
Things do not stop here. All these things contribute to slower economic growth, war, pandemics, etc. eventually bringing chaos everywhere.
What does it take to achieve the goals we are setting for the environment?
In Mr. Badrinarayanan’s opinion, there is a need to make people aware constantly. Whenever a calamity occurs people talk, but after some time they go back to their lives as nothing happened. This needs to be changed. However, he adds that there are several policies being made to achieve a better environment. He believes that global consensus is becoming more important in such times.
Auto healing of mother nature
As our hosts ask Mr. Badrinarayanan about his thoughts on how mother nature healed itself during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the complete shutdown, he replies by saying that although it is true that mother nature can heal itself, it needs help from the people living on it. Healing done by nature is not sufficient as most people get back to business as usual when the unlock happens. He calls the pandemic to be the payback of mother nature for what we have done to it.
Climate change and politics
Mr. Badrinarayanan believes that politics plays an important role in the policies regarding climate change. The politicians do what the public demands, so if the voices of people are higher regarding climate change, they’ll swing that way and make policies to conserve the environment.
India and climate change
According to Mr. Badrinarayanan, there is a lot of action happening in India to sustain the environment, but it is not adequate. However, we also have to understand how much progress is being done and how quickly it is happening. He later talks about how GDP growth and energy consumption are interrelated. He says that the government of India is taking good steps in diversifying the resources of energy. He provides statistical figures telling the energy demand of the country and where we are going with it.
Roles and Duties to support positive change in climate
He tells us that it is quite simple to support climate change. All you have to do is to listen to the podcasts that he is on, join social media groups talking about these issues, follow entrepreneurs mining opportunities in climate change, etc.
Gen Zs and climate change
Mr. Badrinarayanan mentions that icons like Greta Thurnberg are inspiring the young generation and making them aware of the problems we might face in the future, to which this generation is responding positively. The younger generation is more aware of the lesser use of plastic and other things that are good for the environment.
ESG strategy
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance factors. These factors are used to check how companies, industries, and even countries are using the environment. He tells us that the outperformance of the ESG funds has stood out, especially after 2008, investors are worried about ESG and people have started to take notice of it. This is leading to other policies coming up. He believes that an ambitious GDP plan does not contradict ESG strategy. However, in the short term, it might be difficult to pull off.
UNPRI
Mr. Badrinarayanan tells us that UNPRI, now called PRI, was constituted by the United Nations. Its role is to bring together different asset owners and asset managers, basically in the financial service industry, to talk about policies with a view to enhancing ESG implementation across the globe. It has many committees, Mr. Badrinarayanan is a member of one out of those, which is, ‘Global Policy and Reference Group’.
Profile
An INSEAD alum and a business-driven ESG & Climate Change Strategist with a unique global & local perspective on risks and opportunities to business from a sustainability and climate change standpoint, Chandru is widely respected for his ESG & Climate Change acumen. He is also a part of the technical working group on Sustainable Finance regulations constituted by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Backed with a solid 30 years of experience in launching and scaling high margin businesses across the financial services spectrum, including investment services, credit ratings, and risk management, he brings the following skills to the table:
- ESG & Climate Change Risk Evaluation: Global financial and business insights coupled with exposure to risk assessment and analytical tools
- Empowering Investment Decisions: Assessing short to long-term effects of ESG & Climate Change related transition risks & opportunities to various businesses
- Deep understanding of local and global assessment models, regulations, and thought process on ESG & Climate Change and their effects on businesses
- Profitably scaling new business ventures from scratch
