Skip to content
Event

Climate & Nature Risk Practitioner’s Month

Cutting Edge Tools and Guidance for Finance Professionals

CFRF Series | October 30; November 6, 13, 20 | 4:00 PM GMT

Details

October 30, 2025
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Online
Link Emailed Upon Registration

Contact

Questions can be directed to GARP Events at events@garp.com.

Share

Overview

This four-week series of webcasts marks the release of a brand-new set of insights from the Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF), the world’s first forum bringing together practitioners and regulators to develop best practices for climate and nature-related risk management. 

GARP is excited to once again hosting a series of webcasts to showcase the CFRF’s latest outputs, the result of a collaborative effort between banks, insurers, and asset managers, as well as consultancies and academics that have been convened by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority. 

In these webcasts, our speakers will share pioneering tools and guidance – designed by and for finance professionals – to help tackle the escalating risks from climate change and nature loss. 

Speakers

Loubna Benkirane

Loubna Benkirane

Head of Climate and Sustainability Risk, Aviva
Loubna Benkirane

Loubna Benkirane

Head of Climate and Sustainability Risk, Aviva

Loubna is an Actuary with 20+ years’ experience in risk management. In the last six years, Loubna has been particularly focusing on the embedding of climate and sustainability-related risks and opportunities within Aviva’s governance, risk management and reporting frameworks. 

Loubna is a passionate about sustainability challenges. She has supported the PRA/FCA Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF) since its establishment in 2019. She also participates in several other industry leading forums with the objective to raise awareness, influence, support the transition to net zero and build best practice across the financial sector. 

Catherine Bremner

Catherine Bremner

Chief Strategy Officer, Impax Asset Management
Catherine Bremner

Catherine Bremner

Chief Strategy Officer, Impax Asset Management

Catherine is Impax’s Chief Strategy Officer. She is responsible for leading our business strategy, including corporate development activities and for leading the build of Impax/s digital strategy, inclusive of our data architecture and AI capability. With over 25 years of experience in sustainable development, finance, strategy and change management, she is also a highly respected leader in green finance.

Before joining Impax in 2021, Catherine spent five years at the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, including acting as Director General, responsible for around 500 staff tasked with developing the UK’s Net Zero Strategy and International Climate and Energy policy. She also chaired the UK Government’s Climate and Energy G7 Presidency in 2022. Before this, she was Global Head of Environmental Sustainability at Australian financial services firm ANZ. She was also Chief Operating Officer at Low Carbon Australia and Head of International Development at the Carbon Trust.

Outside of Impax, Catherine is on the Board of the Met Office and is the Chair of its Remuneration Committee.   

Catherine holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the London School of Economics, a master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management from Oxford University and a bachelor’ degree (Hons 1st) in Chemical Engineering from The University of Queensland.

Jheryl Cabey

Jheryl Cabey

Associate Director, Climate Riak & Strategy, KPMG
Ajay Gambhir

Ajay Gambhir

Director of Systemic Risk Assessment, Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA)
Ajay Gambhir

Ajay Gambhir

Director of Systemic Risk Assessment, Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA)

Dr Ajay Gambhir is Director, Systemic Risk Assessment, at ASRA (the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment, hosted by the UN Foundation). He leads on ASRA’s approach to assessing systemic risks, as well as identifying and curating supporting data, evidence and models. Ajay is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, where he previously worked as a climate change and energy academic, leading a team on integrated assessment modelling of low-carbon development pathways.

Alex Kennedy

Alex Kennedy

Head of Sustainable Finance Solutions, Standard Chartered
Alex Kennedy

Alex Kennedy

Head of Sustainable Finance Solutions, Standard Chartered

Alex is responsible for offering bespoke Sustainable Finance solutions to the Bank and to its clients. Alex has been instrumental in the issuance of the Bank’s three Sustainability Bonds and in the Bank’s launch of the world-first sustainable money market deposit in 2019. Since then, he has led the rollout of ESG derivatives, ESG repos, sustainable savings accounts, sustainable trade finance, green mortgages and an NDC aligned climate loan. He is the Bank’s lead on frameworks (green, social and transition), taxonomies, and sustainable finance impact reporting. He also leads the Bank’s work on Adaptation & Resilience, and social finance.

As well as being a trustee of the Vision Catalyst Fund, Alex helped establish and now sits on the board of a social enterprise operating between London and Kenya that serves to empower young people through employment.

Jack McKeown

Jack McKeown

Director, Strategy, Risk & Transactions Advisory, Deloitte
Jack McKeown

Jack McKeown

Director, Strategy, Risk & Transactions Advisory, Deloitte

Jack is a director in Risk Advisory leading on stress testing and climate risk stress testing. Prior to joining Deloitte in February 2023, Jack spent 5 years as head of stress testing at the Bank of England, leading the concurrent stress testing programme of major UK banks. As well as leading the annual stress tests (ACS) used to set bank capital buffers and assess the resilience of banks and the system, Jack also led the exploratory stress testing programme, including the climate stress tests published in 2022. In total, Jack spent 22 years at the Bank of England advising policymakers on monetary and financial stability.

Dr. Maxine Nelson

Dr. Maxine Nelson

SVP, GARP Risk Institute
Dr. Maxine Nelson

Dr. Maxine Nelson

SVP, GARP Risk Institute

Dr. Maxine Nelson is a Senior Vice President at the GARP Risk Institute, GARP’s research and thought leadership arm, where she focusses on climate financial risk management. 

She has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD characterizing how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.

Hui Ern Ng, SCR

Hui Ern Ng, SCR

Senior Manager, Climate and Credit Risk Advisory, EY
Prof. Nicola Ranger

Prof. Nicola Ranger

Executive Director, Earth Capital Nexus and Professor in Practice, Natural Capital, Risk and Finance at the London School of Economics
Prof. Nicola Ranger

Prof. Nicola Ranger

Executive Director, Earth Capital Nexus and Professor in Practice, Natural Capital, Risk and Finance at the London School of Economics

Prof. Nicola Ranger is Executive Director, Earth Capital Nexus and Professor in Practice, Natural Capital, Risk and Finance at the London School of Economics. She previously served as Director of the Resilient Planet Finance Lab at the University of Oxford, Executive Director of the Oxford Martin Systemic Resilience Programme and leads the Resilience and Development Group of the Environmental Change Institute. Nicola is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking of the Oxford Martin School and a co-Director of the UK Integrating Finance and Biodiversity Programme. 

She brings 20 years' expertise in risk, analytics, economics, finance and fiscal policy as a practitioner and researcher across industry, government, IFIs and academia. She works with governments, Central Banks, regulators, financial institutions and international organisations to help align policy and finance with resilience and sustainability goals. She is currently a senior advisor to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), a member of the UK’s Green Taxonomy Advisory Group and co-Chair of the Resilient Planet Data Hub, an international public-private partnership with the UN and Insurance Development Forum providing open data and analytics on climate and nature. Until recently she was a Visiting Academic at the Bank of England, a member of the European Commission’s High Level Expect Group on Sustainable Finance in Low and Middle Income Economies and a Director of the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment. 

Nicola joined Oxford from the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice, where she worked with financial institutions, Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and regional institutions to strengthen financial resilience and implement systems and processes to strengthen national and global resilience to shocks and crises. Prior to this, she held senior roles at the UK Department for International Development, HM Treasury, Risk Management Solutions and Defra. Nicola completed her postdoctoral research in climate economics and policy at the London School of Economics.

Saeed Sanei

Saeed Sanei

Product Manager, ICE Climate
Billy Suid, CFA

Billy Suid, CFA

Head of Climate Risk, Barclays
Billy Suid, CFA

Billy Suid, CFA

Head of Climate Risk, Barclays

Billy is Head of Climate Risk for Barclays, a function created in 2020 to support Barclays’ ambition to become a net zero bank by 2050 and help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

He is responsible for developing Barclays’ climate risk methodologies (including scenario analysis) and managing climate risk in the bank’s portfolio globally. Billy is a member of the Barclays Group’ Sustainability Committee and sits on the investment committee of its Sustainable Impact Capital portfolio.

He has had the pleasure of chairing the Bank of England Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF) working group on financial resilience this year.

Sandy Trust

Sandy Trust

Head of Organisational Risk, M&G
Sandy Trust

Sandy Trust

Head of Organisational Risk, M&G

Sandy Trust is passionate about climate change and sustainability. His personal mission is to help re-connect finance and the economy to nature and the biosphere to deliver a future worth living in. 

Sandy sits on IFOA Council and is past Chair of the IFOA’s Sustainability Board. He leads the actuarial profession’s research with Earth System scientists on climate change and sustainability topics, recent papers include The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios and Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. He advises a range of industry and policy climate initiatives on climate risk and net zero approaches.

 

He works in financial services with large investors to develop and implement their approaches to sustainability.

Claire Zhang

Claire Zhang

US Lead, Climate Risk, Barclays
Claire Zhang

Claire Zhang

US Lead, Climate Risk, Barclays

Claire Zhang specializes in climate risk management and regulatory compliance across U.S. and Europe at Barclays. Previously, she worked in quantitative modeling and stress testing, bringing deep expertise in applying analytical approaches to financial risks.

Moderators

Dr. Maxine Nelson

Dr. Maxine Nelson

SVP, GARP Risk Institute
Dr. Maxine Nelson

Dr. Maxine Nelson

SVP, GARP Risk Institute

Dr. Maxine Nelson is a Senior Vice President at the GARP Risk Institute, GARP’s research and thought leadership arm, where she focusses on climate financial risk management. 

She has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD characterizing how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.

Jo Paisley

Jo Paisley

President, GARP Risk Institute
Jo Paisley

Jo Paisley

President, GARP Risk Institute

Jo Paisley is President of the GARP Risk Institute, the thought leadership arm of GARP. Set up in early 2018, the Institute works across all risk disciplines, with Jo’s focus to date on climate risk management and scenario analysis, stress testing and operational resilience.

Her career began at the Bank of England where she worked in a variety of roles across macroeconomics, statistics, supervision and risk. Her last role was as a Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialists Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority, where she was heavily involved in the design and execution of the UK’s first concurrent stress test in 2014. She left the Bank in 2015 and joined HSBC as their Global Head of Stress Testing. She has also worked as an independent stress testing consultant, advising firms on how to get the most value out of stress testing.

Agenda/Schedule

*Date and Time noted as

    October 30, 2025

  • As climate-related physical risks become increasingly material for financial institutions, data vendors are fulfilling an important need in the climate risk management ecosystem. However, vendors can differ widely in how they assess and project risks at the property level. 

    To help practitioners navigate this landscape, the GARP Risk Institute under the guidance of the CFRF undertook a comprehensive benchmarking exercise with 13 leading vendors, including Climate X, Fathom, First Street, ICE, JBA Risk Management, Jupiter Intelligence, Moody’s, MSCI, Planetrics (a McKinsey & Company solution), Riskthinking.AI, Twinn by Haskoning, S&P Global, and XDI. 

    This webcast will examine: 

    • How different vendors approach physical risk modelling, from their modelling approaches, and methodologies, to scenario and hazard selection;
    • How the vendors deal with incomplete asset location data, and the resulting implications for physical risk assessments;
    • How vendors differ in their assessments of physical risks affecting a common portfolio of 100 properties across the U.K., Europe, the U.S., and Asia.  

    Speakers

    Dr. Maxine Nelson, SVP, GARP Risk Institute

    Billy Suid, CFA, Head of Climate Risk, Barclays

    Moderator

    Jo Paisley, President, GARP Risk Institute

  • November 6, 2025

  • Scenario analysis is a critical tool for assessing climate-related risks and opportunities, and two new resources from the CFRF provide fresh guidance for financial institutions in 2025. 

    The refreshed Online Scenario Analysis Narrative Tool – first launched in March 2023 – incorporates the latest NGFS Phase V scenarios, including coverage across 33 sectors, asset classes, and sovereigns, and signposts to four NGFS short-term scenarios, highlighting key variables, assumptions and limitations. Developed by the industry for the industry, the tool generates tailored reports to help firms better understand their potential exposure to climate change, and thus embed climate into governance, strategy, risk management, and reporting. 

    Alongside this, the new Climate Scenario Analysis Case Studies publication brings together nine quantitative examples from leading financial institutions, academics, and data providers. Covering diverse geographies, asset classes, and time horizons, these case studies highlight how quantitative scenario analysis can be used to drive decision making. 

    This webcast will explore: 

    • Key features of the updated Online Scenario Analysis Narrative Tool, including expanded coverage and tailored reporting outputs;
    • How to use the updated Online Scenario Analysis Narrative Tool and associated reports, including an overview of the NGFS long-term 'Fragmented World' scenario, and practical application and insights through two illustrative examples (energy underwriting and UK sovereigns); and
    • Practical insights from case studies demonstrating how banks, insurers, and asset managers are applying quantitative scenario analysis to estimate financial impacts.

    Speakers

    Loubna Benkirane, Head of Climate and Sustainability Risk, Aviva

    Jack McKeown, Director, Strategy, Risk & Transactions Advisory, Deloitte

    Hui Ern Ng, SCR, Senior Manager, Climate and Credit Risk Advisory, EY

    Saeed Sanei, Product Manager, ICE Climate

    Claire Zhang, US Lead, Climate Risk, Barclays

    Moderator

    Dr. Maxine Nelson, SVP, GARP Risk Institute

  • November 13, 2025

  • As physical climate risks intensify, the financial sector faces growing pressure to move from high-level strategies to practical, operational responses. The 2025 report of the CFRF Adaptation Working Group provides a toolkit to help financial institutions integrate resilience into decision-making across asset classes, sectors, and geographies. 

    Building on the 2024 report Mobilising Adaptation Finance to Build Resilience, this year’s output focuses on data, modelling, and financial mechanisms that can mainstream adaptation into financial systems, from granular asset-level assessments to sovereign risk analysis. 

    This webcast will explore: 

    • Practical frameworks and tools, including updates to the Aim–Build–Contingency (ABC) framework, adaptation-inclusive transition plans, and methods to strengthen data, modelling, and scenario analysis;
    • Financial mechanisms and incentives, from pricing, capital, and product design levers that reward resilience, to approaches for embedding adaptation value into credit modelling and investment decisions; and
    • How adaptation can be incorporated at multiple system levels, from asset-level flood risk to sovereign creditworthiness and international finance access. 

    Speakers

    Catherine Bremner, Chief Strategy Officer, Impax Asset Management

    Alex Kennedy, Head of Sustainable Finance Solutions, Standard Chartered

    Moderator

    Jo Paisley, President, GARP Risk Institute

  • November 20, 2025

  • Financial institutions are increasingly recognizing that climate and nature risks are inseparable, with biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and feedback loops amplifying systemic risks across markets. Yet integrating nature into risk frameworks remains a challenge. 

    To address this, the CFRF has published a new report exploring the climate-nature nexus and its implications for financial stability and decision-making. Building on its first nature-related risk publication, the paper provides practical guidance for risk managers, portfolio managers, analysts, and climate leads. 

    This webcast will explore: 

    • Key principles for assessing systemic risks from nature degradation and how these can cascade through financial systems;
    • Practical approaches to embedding nature into existing climate risk frameworks, including scenario analysis and strategic planning;
    • Case studies and tools such as the TNFD LEAP framework to support implementation;
    • Data challenges and a methodology for developing plausible, adverse nature-climate scenarios; and 
    • Opportunities for resilience and mitigation through nature-based solutions.

    Speakers

    Jheryl Cabey, Associate Director, Climate Riak & Strategy, KPMG

    Ajay Gambhir, Director of Systemic Risk Assessment, Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA)

    Prof. Nicola Ranger, Executive Director, Earth Capital Nexus and Professor in Practice, Natural Capital, Risk and Finance at the London School of Economics

    Sandy Trust, Head of Organisational Risk, M&G

    Moderator

    Dr. Maxine Nelson, SVP, GARP Risk Institute

See What's Upcoming

Explore our calendar of events on financial risk, AI, sustainability and climate, and more.