Wednesday webinar at one: Cement and the net-zero transition

Wednesday 19 April 2023 | 13:00 - 13:40 | Webinar

This event has been organised by CFA UK's Climate Change Working Group

Speakers from CBI and Cambridge University will provide insights into challenges and opportunities linked with cement sector decarbonisation. They will cover the role of sustainable investment, SLBs, sector criteria to define what green looks like, and the importance of supportive policy.

You come away with key learning points including:

• Understand the importance of the transition of hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, and related risks and opportunities
• Grasp the role that sustainable finance can play in decarbonising the cement industry and the relevance of sector-specific criteria defining what a credible and Paris-aligned investment looks like
• Understand the importance of a supportive policy framework to close the investment gap between fossil-based and green production processes and some of the recently adopted policies’ impact.

Timings

Registration: 12:55

Event: 13:00 - 13:40

Speaker

Paul Vermaak, Head of Standards, Climate Bonds Initiative 

Paul is responsible for the management and oversight of the standards team, developing sector criteria in various key hard to abate sectors. The sector criteria support the Climate Bonds taxonomy and standards to ensure alignment with the broader Climate Bonds climate resilience agenda (including, physical, social, economic and ecosystem resilience).

Sector criteria require usable mitigation & adaptation and resilience criteria and/or assessment frameworks for capital investments, assets, economic activities, and companies in all major sectors of relevance to capital markets.

Paul is a project manager and earth scientist with over twenty years of experience in the ESG, oil & gas, mining & minerals, built environment, forestry and agricultural sectors.

Paul has authored, project managed and provided specialist scientific services for a variety of construction, environmental, mining and related investigations across a broad spectrum of local and international legal frameworks (permitting, auditing and due dligence reviews). 

Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and the Environment, University of Cambridge

Julian Allwood is Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge and directs the use less group. Uniquely, his research aims to articulate a pathway to zero emissions based on technologies that already exist at scale. This directs attention to eliminating process emissions and efficient electrification.

A particular focus of his research is to identify opportunities for business growth compatible with real zero emissions. In 2022 this has led to founding three spin-out companies, including the worlds’ first zero-emissions process for producing Portland cement, with a pipeline of other opportunities in development.

From 2019-24 he is director of UK FIRES – a £5m industry and multi-university programme aiming to explore all aspects of industrial strategy compatible with delivering zero emissions by 2050. Absolute Zero, the first publication of UK FIRES continues to attract widespread attention including a full debate in the House of Lords in Feb 2020, and has led to a string of other reports, research and impact.

Fabio Passaro, CFA, Transition Policy Analyst, Climate Bonds Initiative

Fabio Passaro, CFA, is the Transition Policy Analyst at Climate Bonds Initiative. Fabio leads the steel and cement transition policy work steam, develops policy blogs, briefs, and reports on the net-zero transition, promoting the role of sustainable finance in meeting climate targets. 

He has authored A Green Future for Steel, outlining how EU policymakers can enable the net-zero transition of the EU steel sector and how specific EU policies can be strengthened to best deliver a credible transition and A Fork in the Road for the Global Steel Sector, describing how this decade offers a perfect opportunity for the global steel industry to transition and how specific policies can support the sector's decarbonisation. 

He is an energy transition and governance graduate from the Centre International de Formation Européenne.