Sustainable Finance
Interview with Lorena Munoz del Campo
This is a transcript of the podcast interview recorded for Sustainability Explored on 14 of May 2020.
This is Season 2 Episode 33.
You can listen to it here, or join on any of your favorite podcast platforms.
Anna: [00:00:07] Hi everyone and warm welcome to this Episode #33 of Sustainability Explored, a hodcast where we talk about different angles and shapes of sustainability in business and economy.
Every week, just to remind everyone who is new to this format, to this platform, to this channel, I invite one professional in the field of sustainability across any industry to share his or her views on the present and future of the world through the prism of sustainable development, of course. This is why the podcast is called Sustainability Explored :)
This week I want to shed some light on sustainable finance. For this, I invited Lorena Muñoz del Campo - Senior advisor on Green Economy and Sustainable Finance.
She advises governments & corporations on how to create and establish strategies and plans that create economic value from the environmental variable. Lorena calculates associated financial risk from environmental impacts to investment loans and evaluates environmental strategies and scenarios for national and international companies and organizations.
My name is Anna, I am the podcast host of this show.
Can’t wait to get this interview started! Lorena is in Chile, I am in Ukraine. She’s my first guest from the Latin American region.
Join our discussion to learn how environment & finance dance together, where it is smart to invest these days, tune in to get the Latin American perspective on sustainability and environmentalism. Lorena will share some facts and personal experience stories that will blow your mind — I promise.
So, let’s get it started!
Anna: [00:02:09] Hi everyone, and hi Lorena.
Today my guest is Lorena Muñoz del Campo and we are talking about Sustainable Finance.
Having some experience in the banking sector myself, I have accumulated a lot of questions and I luckily found Lorena who is happy to answer them today for me.
So, the topic is sustainable finance. And in particular, we will touch a lot of financial institutions' questions, issues, behavior in regards to sustainability.
So, Lorena, the stage goes to you. Please, introduce yourself to the listeners a bit more. Tell us what are you busy with today?
Lorena: [00:02:53] I hope I can answer your question or at least a little chat about it and share our frustrations.
Okay. I started as an environmental engineer in 1992 as a biochemist. It was very frustrating. So, I realized after a couple of years that I won’t be able to do much if I couldn’t speak the language of the decision-makers. And that language was finance.
So, I moved from science, straight science to administration, to management at first. I did a management diploma. And I realized I was good at that.
And in between all of the topics, I liked finance more. So, I did my master’s degree in finance. I start working on what was in those times, environmental liabilities evaluation. There was no topic, no jobs on sustainable finance. Sustainable finance didn’t exist.
I start working in environmental liability evaluation in due diligence, normally. Diligence for fusion and acquisitions at first, introducing the value of the environment in the asset that was trading. And then also evaluating assets and correcting through the environmental, environmental liabilities, how they affect the value of the asset of the company when you do the transaction and that for loans.
I started with medium-sized loans and then, big loans.
The point is that environment itself back then, 20 something years ago, was not really important for anybody.
Birds and trees couldn’t pay for the supermarket.
That was the sentence of my father when I told him I will go to study environmental science.
He told me that he felt like he wasted all that money educating me.
It was kind of frustrating when I went into finance, it was okay because he’s a finance guy too.
I moved from this environmental liability evaluation for due diligence to the carbon markets at the beginning of the 2000`s. Mainly in energy and waste management, and then I realized I could structure funding for those projects, not just selling the carbon credits, but using those assets as collaterals and so on.
So, I was able to reduce financial risk through that area, and I started moving from this just technical and financial evaluation to really structuring finance interesting stuff. And I’ve been doing that for the last 12–15 years, maybe.
So, I moved from small-medium sized project to big loans. Like that, I structured the electricity grid for Ecuador. Ecuador is a Latin American country.
It was the $4,3 billion project, and the collateral I use was the 2.5 million tons of steel they will be using through changing the electricity grid from fossil to renewable. They were 85% fossil and they were moving to 80% renewable.
And I could reduce the rate for the loan (it was about $4,5 billion loan to 50 years from 9.8% to 5,25%), and structure all the debt and including this collateral.
Anna: [00:06:56] It was a governmental agency?.
Lorena: [00:07:01] Yeah. The project was funded by the IADB bank, Inter American Development Bank, I worked as a consultancy. And the client was the Ecuadorian government, specifically the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance.
In the end, all the money enters for infrastructure: they did the electricity grid. And investment loans implicate an increase in the GDP.
When this loan finally went through, it was a huge impact on the country, and this was between this job I did 10 years ago.
I realized: “You could do things! And demonstrate, really, that evaluating the social-environmental risk, it’s good for the business finally. You can create economical value doing that. And finally, the argument goes: “ I translate normally all my evaluations in money. I monetize that.”
Anna: [00:08:08] How exactly did you do that? How do you exactly translate the environmental and social issues, the findings that you came up with during your due diligence into the financial risk? How do you exactly put a price on that?
Lorena: [00:08:27] Well, it’s part of my PhD :)
Normally since I come from science, for me it’s easier to understand all those variables. I understand that people that come from straight from business, management, finance or that area, it’s more difficult because normally scientists don’t like to talk about money. They just talk about scientific findings that you cannot really translate into something real, in the real word.
So what I do is to take those findings and I try to translate environment in hectares of natural resources used, the ecological footprint that could be something like: if you have a finance statement, it would be part of the running cost. Because running the facility will need some environment issues to run it, like, I don’t know, water, air, soil, natural resources.
All of that can be translated into the ecological footprint. The ecological footprint can be translated into tons of CO2. And if you have tons of CO2 you don’t use the spot price. You can go through Nordhaus…William Nordhaus, the Nobel Prize recipient, calculated the social cost of the carbon.
Each country normally has more or less social cost for it. And you can see the impact of this project in terms of tones of CO2 and hectares of natural resources — every impact of that facility will be translated in positive and negative, in assets and liabilities in terms of the environment.
And then it’s not any more trees or birds or whatever. Is money right now.
It’s either a debt or an asset.
And then you go through: if it’s a running facility — one that is in operation, you can see the normal evaluation of environmental liabilities on that easily. You can easily translate it into money in the long-term liabilities.
Then you have the structure, then you can restructure that environmental debt. You can do whatever you want with it — hat’s in the monetization part.
In the risk part — since 1991 there is the World Bank Association has the Equator Principles that can be translated into 8 points and each point is (I think you may be going through those evaluations), you have projects A, B, C, and then B that’s spread in two, and then you can translate everything in projects A B, C value of risk
Anna: [00:11:19] The value of risk. Highest and medium.
Lorena: [00:11:23] And then you have the risk better for the environment, and you can include it in the rate of the loan.
Anna: [00:11:29] How about social risk?
Lorena: [00:11:33] Well, in my country, we have a lot of mining. We are copper exporter, the biggest copper exporter of the world. So, we have a lot of social issues relating to mining explorations.
I don’t know if you’re aware, but among the 22 mining, transnational mining companies in Latin America, 20 of them have actually process lawsuits against them because due to human rights violations. We have the highest rate of murders of activists, environmental activists, normally indigenous people.
We have a lot of social issues in Latin America, and a lot of inequality.
My country is the one that has the highest inequality rate in OECD. We are OECD actually.
Before going through a country, I review the human development index of the country corrected by inequality.
I can go through the population that is in the (depending on which kind of evaluation I’m doing) influential area of the project where the project will be installed.
And then one can calculate how this human development index will be impacted (in positive or negative again) with this project.
Then you can calculate at the end, if this population will receive an improvement on the human development index, then the quality of life. Or if that quality of life will be reduced. And if it will be reduced, how much it will be. And all of that is GDP invest in population. So again, you arrive at money.
I’ll say that again: you will have social asset and social liabilities that can be restructured. And liabilities always can be restructured. And if you can restructure it in the best case scenario, at the end has an output of maybe creating environmental assets and/or social.
For instance, in Mexico, they had the extended responsibility of the importer and producer. That law is called Waste Law.
I help the country in developing a norm for plastic recycling. And that norm, if it was implemented, government was aware of the fact that lot of people that is producing plastic and using plastic and all of that will be against this norm. It is a federative country, so it was a norm for the country, each state.
What I calculated was that if we start to recycle those plastics, you will have an industry that will decrease, which is the plastic producers, that won`t like that norm. And then you will have another industry that will rise, which is the recyclers.
Recycling is positive in terms of producing reductions on CO2, if you analyze the whole life cycle -so that’s what I did — analyzed the whole life cycle.
Mexico is on the border, on the northern border of the United States. Even Mr. Trump says that Mexico will not export to the United States, normally the United States exports waste to Mexico. Between the lines it says: raw material for recycling. For a country that cannot recycle, they don’t have recycling capabilities.
But then when I started to operate the recycling capabilities of Mexico were 5%, it was kind of a huge impact on the border population.
Thus, when they translate everything, in the end, the global impact of introducing the norm of recycling the plastic was almost $2 billion of GDP plus increasing of the GDP of the country, 1.5 million of direct employment.
Also, the plastic in the border (border of the United States is agricultural areas) was given to poor families and they used it to warm themselves, so they burn it inside the households. So, there was a huge social impact of that activity.
And by transforming those families from just pure agricultural activity to agriculture+recycling, because they could receive that plastic and then pack it, after that, take the plastic to the recycling facility or to a point where the truck could take this plastic, this would increase the income from that family because they were paid for doing this task, taking the plastic and letting the plastic to the recyclers that would burn it.
In the end, there was an increase in the human development index of those populations by increasing the income per family, but also reducing the health hazard that implicated to have that plastic burn inside the household.
That is another GDP that is reduced.
They don’t need to go and put money on that, they could take that money and put it in another way. Also, the project reduces about 2 million tons of CO2 a year, which is 3% of the Paris Agreement cup of the country.
If you consider that in Latin America reducing one ton of CO2 is about $180 per ton, and the social carbon cost is about $40, and that country has $5 of tax for the CO2, you have the reduction on the GDP invest in terms of just pure social issues will be $35 per ton.
And in terms of GDP invest in technology will be $180- $175 per ton in reduction of the GDP that needs to be invest.
So finally, you can calculate the economic incentives to allow this new industry to grow and to start.
Right now, what they have is in the first few years, they increased the recycling capabilities from 20,000 tons a year to 45,000 tons a year. We calculated, I designed with the people, with the association of recyclers (they were small industry; right now, they’re big industry) the best technologies available, which facility was the most feasible facility in terms of the technical issue, the process lines, but also the environmental issues, the social issues. because it’s an industry that needs a lot of human resources.
In our countries, maybe we cannot pay for a process line that has robots and everything super-automatic. What we have more labor.
Instead of having maybe a facility with 10 persons, you have a facility with 50 people.
And in the border area where there is a lot of issues with cartels and all of that, you have mostly towns of just women that were left behind without men that went to United States to find the American dream.
They [women] are usually left behind — the guy goes to the US and after three months he has another girl over there, so they stop sending money, and women are left behind with children and normally alone.
Those facilities have lots of women, and we put inside facilities daycares where the children can stay and are not taken by the cartels for their purpose.
You have all the environmental and social stuff happening in a beautiful way, but all of that finally is translated in GDP, like the increase in jobs that got paid, reduction of CO2.
And all of that — is money. It’s million dollars, billion dollars in this case.
I presented that at a conference last year. I wrote a paper about that in the track of innovative economical models.
I think what we need to change is the economical model.
Natural resources have an end. We are at the top of it. We don’t have more, two, or three Earth available natural resources.
Since right now, natural resources are not fully available for any of the initiatives humans can have.
I think what we need to start to do is to calculate those issues properly. And then give the priority to projects that can have those natural resources and use those natural resources, will help to transit to a circular economy and finally to a green economy.
We need to move from what we have right now.
I remember my first years were really frustrating. When those managers and even my father told me: “You know, what you do you won’t pay, with birds you don’t pay the supermarket.”
And I used to say to him:” Well, dollars are green too.”
I think that by translating adequately this language (science, scientific language) to the language that decision-makers know, understand, and sometimes take into account, we will be okay.
But also, I start with this social stuff, but even for me at first it was really difficult in terms of…I’m a scientist. I am a biochemist. My concentration was in molecular biology, I used to deal with bacteria and viruses, not birds, nothing, none of that.
My stuff was energy, water treatment, water recycling, all of that because it was related with my biochemist soul.
To go and deal with people, for someone that used to work alone, it was different and funny translating it into something that politicians can use and managers can use and put in the books and the sustainability reports and so on. It’s good for them and it good for the business in the end.
Anna: [00:23:25] I have a question, though. Now the situation with Coronavirus specifically shows us that short-term thinking is no way to win.
I’ve heard it a lot in my corporate career, the management would say: “We are only here for four years. (In Ukraine for example, it’s four years term for the local country powers) What do you want? Let us take whatever we have to take! Money. And we’re gone! The next portion will start their next cycle.”
How would you explain and what would you suggest in terms of the environmental and social and financial incentives, if you are in the situation like this? If they only care for short term wins.
Lorena: [00:24:20] Well I’ve been in that situation a lot. I can put all what I do in point number one, number two, and number three, and then see how much time it will take.
In 2018 I dealt with the Ministry of Finance, so you can imagine finance guys talking about money, not really with the politician guy. I normally would give my report and they’d say bla-bla-bla…
On that meeting I was with the president.
He was not interested in what we were doing really.
I told him: “At the end of the project in 4 years (which is his period) — this amount of money (which was $1.3 billion GDP, an increase of this amount was about 2.5% point of the GDP for your period).
After that, if they continue to do well, in one year I can give you this - you can go and cut the ribbon, call the press, and it will have a huge impact because a lot of people will be impacted in a positive way.
And then in the second year, I can give you this part of the project, and this is not ribbons, but it will improve the quality of life, so you will be able to give a speech about this issue. And then, in the fourth year, before the election, we would have this part of the project delivered.”
So, by doing that, by spreading the project into small pieces — it will be easier to manage. They can see other benefits that one cannot see. Maybe that person will be able to introduce someone for the next period, I don`t know. But I delivered the project like that.
And the other thing I used is that normally when you can, in the first benefits in terms of social issues put women and children! It’s better.
Normally, men don’t care much about social issues. Women — yes.
If you do good to children, you will have 50% of the people voting for you.
And women always remember when you do good to a child or when you do wrong to a child. And that’s a long-term memory. And that’s what I use in that moment.
But I didn’t use that in Ecuador. In Ecuador, it was the poor sector of the economy. I used part of the income that will be arriving in the country in order to reduce the electricity bill for poor families.
And it was a long-term low tariff for them.
It lasts until nowadays, it’s been 8 years already since this new grid got in place. Just this year [2020] they increased that tariff.
In my country [Chile], we had a really a social blast last year. Before that, I designed a green bond, the green climate fund.
Anna: [00:27:49] Yeah, that’s something I wanted to ask you. Can you give me more details about this green bond? Whose idea was it and what exactly is inside of that?
Lorena: [00:28:00] The real life was… I was here at home. It was last year. It was, the Latin American Reconstruction Bank and the AIBB that give money to my country in order to develop something.
I don’t know if you’re aware that COP25 was supposed to happen in my country [Chile]. And in order to be able to show something, those banks gave some money in order to have a consultancy and do something.
Nobody knew how to do it. So, they decided to do something in renewables. Politicians always, when they think of sustainability, are thinking of a solar panel.
To see the market in terms of the energy they needed, they wanted the renewables. And 60% of the market is medium classes and lower-income families that are out of the social security policies, they don’t receive anything, there’s no money for them, just need fight for themselves.
And then 60% of that market is also 60% of the households of the country.
I designed some financial instrument that will go from that money that will arrive in the country, to the banks as warranties, collateral for credit. So, if you receive one, you can have ten in terms of loans given.
But also, it was really interesting. I had fun doing that!
I did revolving credits.
So, in real terms, it will multiply the money by 50. It’s a really interesting financial model.
One of the issues was that our institutional framework is not prepared for such stuff — I needed to go through some institutions that already exist in the country that were not really the government.
The government, the Ministry of Finance will not be receiving that money — that was one issue, they didn’t want that. But finally, they accepted because it was huge stuff to promote.
I did the five finance instruments: collateral for housing including solar panels, improving the walls and windows in order to reduce the thermal energy use in winters, and also for small- and medium-size companies, co-operatives, schools; also — and this one is really interesting — because I used part of the money in collaterals for startups, so you could develop brokers that will analyze projects and make a portfolio of projects, so they will apply this money to banks as collateral, other investors will be interested in coming and investing in those products so you can multiply it.
That’s the one I like because it’s the long-term stuff. You start the development of a financial market for startups and innovation for this specific project, which is really interesting.
I delivered my report on April,14 and then I took two months explaining to the Ministry of Finance how it will work in terms of: first — the environment, then — the people, those people exist really.
There are people in my country that don’t have money to do this.
And then how it worked in terms of finance? How was it evaluated? How the rate of the loan, the rate of the money that was incoming that would enter from the GCF? And then how it will enter the banks, how the banks will be returning the money, and how it will go back because it’s kind of a soft loan…
It’s not really money for free. We are OECD. We are not a subject of free money. We need to return it.
How were the rates for each one of the instruments? How was the project finance model working? It was really interesting.
The bond was in September, I remember when they did all the marketing for it and then the first finance instrument was ready for the market in January this year [2020]. It was really fast.
Anna: [00:32:37] In two words, would you explain how does the green bond work exactly? What it is in terms of a financial instrument? So, you buy a paper, that is a bond, with the obligation to use it on a specific project that has to be something that you just named, like alternative energy?
Lorena: [00:32:59] In two words it’s project-finance. A project-finance is what I designed. And when you have, for instance, a facility like a new mining exploration, and the owner of this mining goes to a bank and then they present the 10 pages project with all the aspects of the project in it: with permits within the institutional framework, the risks, environmental risks, social risks, financial risk.
If it’s approved — in terms of when you have a mining exploration, you will receive the money to do it. And the project itself is not a warranty for the loan.
This project finance, this document, needs to have whatever a finance analyst will need. You need to translate what we were talking about before. All the social issues, all the environmental issues are finally translated into money, are monetized.
I know that normally people have some issues in terms of “translating” the birds and trees. But this is even worse — it’s when you say you’re “translating” people's lives into money. I know it. But that’s the language of today’s work.
If we want to transition from this worldwide, everything can be put in money, in dollars or in euros to a world where a person is important because it’s a person.
And a bird is important because it’s a bird — and we are both a part of the environment.
We need to start speaking the language that people understand. So, what this is — is a finance project.
Everything is monetized and everything is translated into financial risk.
Part of the risk will be social.
Part of the risk will be environmental.
Part of the risk will be the economy and finance. And all of that is at one rate.
And part of the benefit will be the increasing of the human development index of those people. Those people can change their lives due to this project.
And also you have ±2.5 million tons of CO2 reduction. So, there is a huge environmental impact too. But in the end, what the banks or every finance institution will see is the rate. And an internal return rate for their investment, the equity IRR.
Anna: [00:35:50] You seem like a very knowledgeable person in terms of sustainable finance. I have a question for you. Where would you say, it is wise to invest in today? Which sphere? Which area of the economy?
Lorena: [00:36:07] I was asked the same question last week. I don’t know why people are asking for that…
You know, what I’ve been sensing in the market right now, what we have is a crisis. Crisis brings good opportunities.
In real terms, what we’re seeing is that the market is correcting because in the past, what we had is overpriced assets. If you look at the United States, for example, part of the effect is the virus, the coronavirus pandemic, but part of the effect is that you already had an overvaluation of the assets.
So, the market is correcting to the lower price, by itself. The market always corrects itself.
And that is a phenomenon, it’s not just in the United States, you’re having the same phenomenon in different parts of the world. And for me, it’s the same crisis as in 2008 and it’s happening right now.
The correction was not made at the point of the crisis, but it’s been made all over the years. That’s one point.
Second point. European Union is, beside giving lots of money to the people, the industry, some banks, etc, is promoting a fund to help the circular economy idea implementation.
What shows us that the money that will be delivered to the market, is the money, so to say, sustainable. Circular economy for politicians and banks is a kind of recycling.
It’s not really a circular economy, but what one can see is — there is a movement.
One of my professors (I did my Master in finance) gave the lecture on the stock markets.
I remembered asking him a question about all this environmental stuff that goes through IFRS, the International Frame of Registration System. And he said, well, I don’t know, Lorena, there are people like you that are experts in the environment, well give us a number and we will correct the stock market.” And I said — “Okay”.
And he told me “Sometimes a company's value is better for the investor when the company is dead instead of alive. You have to go hard sometimes.”
And as my professor said: “Sometimes you need to be compassionate. Let someone die.”
And at this moment I think that it will be the moment to see what we will be saving, at what cost? And let some industry die. Or what is fossil finally will die anyway.
And right now, for instance, Germany has 50% of the renewables and Costa Rica, I think it’s 80% of renewable.
Models for investments should go through that financial instrument I designed.
I think that if you have money or if you’re a good finance person that can understand the social and the environmental risk, start developing portfolios or maybe investment portfolios or innovative projects or innovative industry or sustainable industry, but investment portfolios.
And start speaking the language of finance to investors will be a good move atthis moment. Because those investments are really socially sustainable, environmentally sustainable, but also economically sustainable.
Anna: [00:40:13] Triple bottom line attention.
Lorena: [00:40:17] So, I think it’s a good way to go through.
Right now, the problem is that normally brokers do not understand the environment and they treat the same way what is green — deep green, light green, and paint green.
So, we need to start differentiating. If you can calculate and see, well, this environmental risk — 1, this one — 2, this one — 3, this one- 4 to make the difference. To show them that green is different.
What I told that person that asked me, I said: “Well if you are investors -start digging in the sustainability report. But not in the part where they say: “We gave to, I don’t know, to the libraries..”
To see what they are doing with their energy, with the water and with the plants. And start in your mind focusing on those areas that are really the sustainable, the environmental sustainability.
And also, if they have agreements with the communities. How are their relations with the communities? If they have agreements? If they have policies to help them, etc.
Because those companies won’t have problems with the community even if they have problems, really, with accidents or whatever, and they won’t have problems with the national authorities in terms of the environment.
So, I think that’s a good way to start looking forward, as an investor, to a greener world.
Anna: [00:41:54] Right. Probably the last question for now. It’s very interesting to talk to you — you have mentioned many times during this conversation the issue of language. The environmental or sustainability specialists have to take into account and translate their scientific word into the word of finance and economy.
What would be the advice, piece of advice you could give to train that skill? Is there a certain book you would suggest to read? Or a certain type of education to go through? A course? Something that will help sustainability professionals to put themselves on the rails of the world out there?
Lorena: [00:42:44] You know, first of all, when you come to this Earth, everybody has some skills. And part of the scientists` skills is to question everything and to think alone.
So, it’s very difficult for a scientist to go to the world and speak to normal people. Because they normally do not speak to normal people.
To lose the fear of going to the world is really hard.
I normally see that it’s easier to have someone that can do that job to go and speak to the world. It’s really difficult for a scientist to do that. But if they can lose that fear…
I remember in 2007 or 2008 I got a class for an environmental engineering. It was kind of one of those courses you take on during the summer and it was in the green economy.
So, I explained to them how to translate it. How to do the translation. Because for scientists, everything is important. And it’s really difficult to choose what to take, and translate everything it’s not feasible.
I think maybe if you’re in the university or whatever, to take a course, a short course during the summer on about something in management will be good. In order to just learn the language like, maybe: what is an asset, what’s liability, what is what.
Just to speak with other words.
Part of what we are is the words we use.
Words create reality.
So, to change the words, to learn that the best two parts of a report for decision-maker is the introduction — one page and the conclusion — another page. And then the rest of the report won’t be ever read by that person.
That report is important because other people will read it and will explain that to the decision-makers. So, the conclusion part is really the important part of a report. And it’s just one page. And that page needs to have everything that person can understand.
And they understand money. They don’t understand anything else.
And if you’re already in the market and you’re already working, you can go and see there is a lot of information today on the internet. So, you can go through the general management course.
People have different capabilities. Someone is good at marketing, so you can see green marketing and you’ll translate whatever you do in terms of marketing.
Other people are good at finance. And can go and maybe take a short course in personal finance.
And money is money.
The point is, normally (I’ve seen that in the past) people have feelings, different feelings when it’s about money. When they are talking about money, it’s kind of, they feel stuff.
I don’t feel. I think money is money.
Take the emotions aside when going to speak about the money. It’s not really the birds. It’s not really the person, the people… It’s not really a tree. It’s not your neighbor. It’s not your garden. It’s not a park.
It’s just money. And this part is needed in order to save what can be saved.
Sometimes you need to let die some part of what you wanted.
Not everything can be saved. Not everybody can be saved.
And for that, I think personal experience helps a lot.
When you’re a child and you see your grandparents die, you cannot save them. They need to go. They need to leave you for good.
I gave a lecture in management, for a master’s degree “Introduction to Sustainability”. And I always said to my students that in my mind we are going through a big crisis in the world order.
The very same crisis we had between the two big wars. Before 1914 we had emperors, kings, and all of that. And after 1945 we had democracies, United Nations, 195 countries together.
Will be moving from something that was empires and kings to something else, maybe a more sustainable world in the best-case scenario.
Anna: [00:47:57] Thank you for these wonderful optimistic words. And for this conversation. Okay. Super!
Lorena: [00:48:06] Thank you.
Anna: [00:48:07] Ciao-ciao.
Anna: [00:48:12] I really do hope you enjoyed this episode and learned something new from Lorena or even myself today.
If you have any questions, as always — feel free, don’t hesitate to let me or my guest Lorena know.
Please reach out to either of us on LinkedIn. I am sure it will make our day.
I also invite you to check other related episodes out. I can’t promote this particular episode enough. It is one of the best, it is called “Green, inclusive, and open economy or why sustainability is not enough.” — that was an Interview with Ralph Thurm.
This episode will help you to get a perspective and a broader understanding of modern-day economy. And to be completely honest with you, we did this recording with Ralph back in February this year [2020].
And I revisited it because we came up finally with the text version that you can check on Medium under the same name.
[The platform called Medium. You type there Sustainability Explored, then you will get all the transcripts, for the episodes, we are releasing on this podcast. So, there I leave all the active links and so on.]
So, when I revisited this episode, I had to re-listen to check with the text. It finally opened up for me slightly more.
I really didn’t even get the massive message that Ralph had for all of us from the first attempt. Thus, three months later, I understood it a little bit more. That only proves how great of content, it was, it is. And what a great and brilliant mind Ralph has.
Another episode, which is more recent, and I did it with Cliona Howie del Rio from EIT Climate-KIC.
So, this episode is called “Circular economy challenges and systemic change with Cliona Howie del Rio from EIT Climate-KIC”.
There we talk about how the economy will change during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
I really hope, I really think these episodes will get you inspired to take some positive action and to look at things from a slightly different angle.
Other than that, and even more related to the subject that we just discussed with Lorena, my first episode that is almost one year old already (God, time flies!) on the green banking called “What is a “green” bank”.
But don’t judge too hard. Again, it was the very first episode. So, don’t set your expectations too high. It’s very short, it doesn’t have any fancy music or anything, but I still feel like it was good.
So, and I would also recommend one more episode. The first episode that I am recommending already related to finance. It’s called “Impact investment and circular economy” with Ron Gonen from Closed Loop Partners. It’s a relatively short one, only 23 minutes, but you’ll get all the juice.
And finally, if you like the podcast, as always, please do consider subscribing. You will get all the episodes first. They are out every Thursday. Consider sharing, leaving a review and rating on the platform you’re listening on.
Sustainability Explored can be found on more than 50 platforms. Just wrap your mind around it!
If you’re listening on iTunes, please rate there.
If you’re listening on any other platform, I cordially invite you to check our Podchaser page and leave a comment there or review. I reply to each and every one personally.
The podcast is for its listeners. So, by taking the time to leave a review, you help more listeners, more audience to discover it.
Thank you again for listening, for being with us today.
And until next time, next Thursday.
Take care! Stay tuned!
Stay healthy and stay home until the lockdown in your area is over. I hope very soon.
Ciao-ciao!
Guest: Lorena Muñoz del Campo
Host: Anna Chashchyna
Editor: Anna Kharybina
