Name: How Your Sustainability Strategy Can Create Value in 2026
Uploaded: 2026-02-13T16:16:04.700Z
Duration: 50 min 8 s
Description: How Your Sustainability Strategy Can Create Value in 2026

Transcript for "How Your Sustainability Strategy Can Create Value in 2026": Hello everyone and welcome to the first of our Sustainability Magazine monthly webinar series. My name is Charlie King and I am the senior editor of Sustainability Magazine. Now today's session is called Sustainability Strategies 2026, and in the next forty five minutes or so, we're going to explore how leading companies are turning sustainability into near term wins, long term value and what those focuses for 2026 are. I'm really pleased to be joined today by Jane Goodland, Group Head of Sustainability at London Stock Exchange Group and Marcia Valiciano, Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of Corporate Responsibility at RELX. Jane, Marcia, thank you so much for being here. Before we jump into our discussion, could you start by just giving me a short introduction to yourselves? Jane, do you want to start us off? Sure, thanks so much for inviting me and Elsa to be part of the conversation today. It's great to have the opportunity to have this conversation. So yeah, you said I am the Group Head of Sustainability at London Stock Exchange Group, LSEG for short. We are the home of the London Stock Exchange, we're also a very large data business as well. And we have a large footprint around our markets business and also financial indices. And my job is to drive the sustainability strategy for the group across all aspects around both risk and opportunity and what that means for our business. So really thinking about our operations, our value chain, customers, suppliers, risk, opportunity, the whole thing really. So quite a wide remit, and I'm sure we'll get into the conversation later about what that means in practice for LSEG. Thank you, Jane, and I'm Marcia Valciano. I am the Head of Sustainability at RELX. RELX is a company that focuses on its unique contributions to society, which we do in our risk business by fighting fraud and protection of society in our science business by trying to advance better health outcomes and to advance research. And then in our legal business, we focus on advancing the rule of law and access to justice. And in our events business, we are bringing communities together and hopefully improving the efficiency of markets. I have the privilege of being the person who started this area for the company. I've been with RelX quite a long time, but I'm constantly learning about our fascinating business, and it is amazing to work with more than 37,000 people in the company to try and drive this agenda forward. I really like what you say, Jane, about risks and opportunities. That's what we're about, minimizing the things that we should and trying to increase on the positive in terms of how we do what we do every day. Incredible. Thank you both again so, so much for being here. Let's dive straight in. So start by sort of setting the scene, looking at sustainability and climate strategies and initiatives. Where is growth, resilience and value creation going to come from in 2026? Jane, do you want to start us off? Yeah, sure. Well, think let's first of all acknowledge that 2026 is an interesting year and we're certainly in kind of a period of time where lots of organisations are taking a moment to really reflect and think through opportunity and that's starting to change because we're operating in a slightly different geopolitical context than we have been in the recent past. And we're starting to see that come through in the policy ecosystem as well, some changes going on there that companies are trying to navigate. So I think it's really important to think about 2026 in the context of what's going on in the world, but also reflecting the fact that for those of us who have been in this kind of type of area of the market for some time like me, this isn't the first time that we've had a slight inflection point around sustainability. There's been periods of time in the past where we've seen a great deal of consensus around sustainability, both from a policy perspective, but an economic one as well. And then periods of time when there's been less of a focus and less of a consensus. So, I think getting to your point around your question around where are some of the risks and growth going to come through, from a risk perspective, I think we see risk associated with policy fragmentation, so that in itself is a risk for businesses to really understand what the policy environment means. So, whether that's policies around corporate treatment around climate or EDI or corporate reporting, we're starting to see not necessarily a consensus around those things across the world. Particularly important for international businesses who are perhaps having to balance the needs of different jurisdictions, that becomes a risk to manage. But outside of the policy area, I think we're starting to see the manifestations of physical climate risk coming through significantly as well, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in more detail later. I think we've got new themes to contend with as well. AI is very much front and center and part of the thinking of sustainability professionals in 2026 because if they're not, they should be thinking about what AI might mean for an organization's sustainability objective. So that's another risk, but potential opportunity as well. So again, sustainability is such an interesting area because it's never static. There's always something else and new to think about. So, in itself is this emerging, ever changing type of theme that businesses need to navigate. But I think in terms of where the opportunity is, it's sort of linked to the risk, right? Because actually, the more that businesses are aware of potential risks to value creation that might come through policy or might come through physical risk or risks to supply chains, actually that can be turned to an advantage because managing those risks efficiently, proactively, in a forward looking way can really help businesses to avoid losing value, but also there are opportunities in there. So for us as a business, we principally think about the value creation element around sustainability as around our provision of sustainable finance products for our customers who want them. So we do have customers who are banks, corporates, financial institutions who are looking to us to supply them with sustainable finance products, and that might be data, it might be the ability to raise sustainable capital, or it might be market infrastructure like indices to help them invest in that way. Now, we're not saying that all customers want to do that, but we have a segment of customers who want ability to be able to utilize those market infrastructure and data tools. And that's where we can create value for us and our shareholders by serving our customers in that way. Incredible, so much to dig in. I'm going to let you go straight in. Well, I was just going to say one of the first emails I got prior to recording today was one from Jane and LSEG saying that sustainable investment is actually in 2026 forecast to remain strong and to rise, and that creates an opportunity for a company like RELX that is now on its third round of five year environmental targets. So, you know, we've been at this quite a long time and we continue to try and raise the bar higher in terms of our sustainability performance, including on the environment. So, when rating agencies look at RELX, we are very pleased, for example, to hold AAA rating for more than ten consecutive years with MSCI. So, I think that from a product side, it's also exciting because we are recording this at the beginning of 2026, and we just had our World Feature Energy Summit show in Abu Dhabi where we brought policymakers and innovators with great technology together with attendees who are looking to purchase and be able to drive forward renewables in their businesses. So this is a great example of how we build this into our products and services. But another one would be related to the analysis that we do and the data analytics, particularly around insurance, because you can hold whatever views that you think are appropriate, but it's sort of inescapable that insurance premiums are rising in different places, are more at risk for extreme weather. And so our colleagues are developing products and have products on the market that can help insurers to be able to price that in. So I see a real driver on the customer side. And then also, I think, in terms of our employees, we know that employees want to work for a good company. They're really passionate about environmental issues. We have green teams across our business, and we were able to use our internal carbon price. So it's a real price that we charge to the business. We were at $50 a ton. That's going up to $60 a ton this year, scaling to $100 by 2030. And so part of the proceeds that we've been able to deploy are for a green fund for employee led ideas for improving our environmental performance. So I think across a range of stakeholders, there's a lot of opportunity. Amazing. I love that empowerment for the wider team as well, not just sustainability. So twenty twenty six looking at data disclosure regulation how can ESG information be turned into a strategic advantage? So there's a lot of focus on sustainability reporting right now so I'm sure listeners will be familiar, but just in case not, we've got kind of different approaches emerging around the world. On the one hand, you have Europe who is pursuing the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which is coming into force for many organizations, not just in Europe, but outside of Europe as well over the coming years. Of them have already kind of been required to report in that way. Those are quite comprehensive reporting requirements and actually is driving a big improvement, I suppose, terms of the depth of data, the quality of data that's being gathered, etc. And then on the international stage, have the development and deployment of international standards by the IFRS Foundation. They've introduced their sustainability reporting standards, are being adopted by jurisdictions around the world in slightly different ways, but nevertheless, alignment going on there. And indeed in The UK, we have the government and the FCA out consulting about how, if and how the IFRS IFRS standards on sustainability should be adopted here. Meanwhile, in The US and North America, disclosure requirements look different and proposed climate disclosure rules that were being considered by the SEC have now not proceeded. So, we've got a patchwork quilt of reporting requirements and for many organizations, this places a significant burden. So let's just be honest and open that many companies that we talk to feel that reporting can be burdensome, can be additional resource. But I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to actually get value from the exercise and have reporting not be an end in itself, but actually to really think about this as an opportunity to gather management insight, an opportunity to know your business in a way that you didn't know it before, an opportunity to measure the things that haven't been measured before. And I think as long as there's sort of a view that within information and insight there's value, then if you look at it in that way, yes, of course, there may be sort of extra effort required to collect this information, but over time there should be benefit that you can pull through that. Whether that's benefit about how to operate your business more efficiently or whether that's information about actually where some of the risk is manifesting that perhaps you didn't really understand properly before or you certainly hadn't maybe quantified before. I think also there's value in connecting the dots as well, so some of the information that now needs to be collected for various different requirements helps us really understand about what parts of the organisation perhaps would be benefiting from talking to other bits of the organisation. And an example might be around connecting agendas around, let's say, data centers. That's something that my organization utilizes. We know that data centers are very important to provide the services we provide, but actually we're starting to get insights around physical climate risk, energy availability, water stress, etc. So these are now bits of information which kind of interesting inputs to other decisions that an organization are taking, that it really helps organizations to take more informed decisions. So I think it's really important. The other angle to this is as well is about looking for opportunities, so looking for opportunities to build out your products and services because if you understand your value chain better, then you also are able to identify potential opportunities to service your customers more as well. So I think fundamentally, it comes back down to understanding and appreciating that while the process itself may feel like a heavy lift for organisations right now, and there's complexity around the policy landscape and effectively what those requirements are going to fundamentally look like ultimately for organisations, I think it's really important to stay focused on kind of what insights can the whole process deliver and crucially how do you then act on those insights. You don't think we're moving into too much reporting then and not enough time and people and energy and resources to be able to act on that? Well, I think it's fair to say that when you look at how mature financial accounting and processes are, those standards were developed over decades it took a long time to get to a consistent way of financial accounting around the world, or certainly kind of sort of big centres and having functions and processes and capabilities and professionals in place in those organisations to make financial accounting reporting something which is recognized as a profession in its own right. I would argue that sustainability reporting is at a very nascent stage in its growth journey. It's not even a toddler, you know, in terms of it hasn't matured and we're going through that pain period of actually starting to understand what's required, what capabilities, what skills, what systems need to be in place to be able to do this and do this well? Companies are really at the beginning of that. The auditors are at the beginning of that. Investors at the beginning of receiving this information. Data providers are still working with imperfect information. I think unlike financial data, when you compare and contrast that with sustainability data, the way in which we measure sustainability is still emerging. We still have to use estimated data quite a lot for where we can't get real data. That's not really the same as financial reporting. I think when you compare and contrast what we're trying to do here with financial accounting and reporting and sustainability, we have to really think about objective. We're ultimately trying to get to a state where the market has high quality, reliable, transparent data upon which to make business decisions and investment decisions. And to be able to get to that point where you've got that really credible source of data, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve and there is going to be a bit of growing pains. But I think if you step back and think about how quickly things have developed, it's incredibly quickly. ISSB took only two years to come up with our standards. That's actually phenomenally quick to come up with a globally consistent standard. Now they've done that because of the leverage, the existing patchwork quilts of what's considered best practice. But I just think companies who are grappling with this need to appreciate that we're on this journey and so there's going to be an adjustment period. It feels like perhaps you know, the skills and capabilities and the teams and the resources are yet to really catch up with what the emerging expectation is from investors and regulators. Marcia, what's your perspective? We started on obviously ESG information as strategic advantage, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the regulation side as well. Yes, and indeed, while in The US the SEC isn't going forward, we do business in California. California is tightening its regulations. So it's a bit of, some jurisdictions are moving forward. And we are subject to regulation where we do business around the world. And we're tracking about 12 different places where ISSB is coming in. And so not only in The United Kingdom and what might happen here as a UK listed business, but around the world we need to be responsive. And if we take a step back on the history, why did ISSB set out on its work? That was because of that reporting burden that Jane highlighted, because you are subject to lots of different requests and it's a kind of holy grail that rather than respond to bespoke pieces of regulation and reporting norms, that if you had one global standard, this would make it easier for companies. And companies like my own, we really like enlightened self regulation, and we've got some fantastic examples of that, and I'll come back to that in a moment. But in a time when you might say, well, know, how sustainability's moment passed, the focus on regulation and the requirement that companies will continue to have to be transparent about their performance, and of course, not only on climate, but in a whole range of other areas related to governance and social issues as well, that this keeps the focus of senior management, of the board, to say that, yeah, this is here to stay. And why? Because we are facing larger existential challenges. Climate change only will, if we don't do things more quickly, we've already seen over the last three years were the hottest years on record. So we've already surpassed 1.5 degrees. Now whether globally that can be brought back more quickly, whether there were other factors at play. But regardless, this is where we are and this will continue to have importance to focus on because it's unavoidable. So we need the regulation. But if I come back, Charlie, to something that you asked Jane, are we focusing so much on the reporting that we're not doing the stuff that we really should be to drive action? And as one of the first companies that voluntarily put out a sustainability statement in accordance with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, we met the test in Europe to be in the first wave of companies. But The Netherlands, where we have euro denominated shares, did not enact that into law, but we decided to move forward anyway on a voluntary basis. It is a kind of scary behemoth, but once you've done it, I think, and realize and hopefully with the simplification measures, make it easier for companies to find what is really material for them, that it's not so bad. Where we spend a lot of resources in terms of our time and energy in the run up to putting out the first statement a year ago, now we've got a model that works for us and it's not so time consuming as it once was. But that's not to belittle the amount of time it does take, but I think that you can find a balance. And one of the ways that you can do that is making sure that you engage as many people in the business as possible. I really like, Jane, what you were saying about reporting, needing the same kind of rigor that we apply to the financial numbers where we'd be lucky. Our Chief Financial Officer is our Chief Environmental Champion. We hold environmental checkpoint meetings throughout the year where we really dig into the numbers to say, where are we with our objectives for the year and what does the data look like? So, having the involvement of our colleagues from finance, from procurement, from global real estate, we all need to work together because we all have a share in improving our output and our performance. I love that. That's absolutely brilliant. Okay, so let's talk priorities then for the coming year. Obviously, we're a little bit into 2026, but what are your climate agendas looking like? What are your priorities? What are you focusing on? For us, with respect to climate specifically, we published a what now looks like a very rudimentary climate transition plan back in 2022, and we were trying to align with the transition plan task force guidance around public transition planning. And I think that the reason why we're keen to sort of do that is to make sure that we are thinking of climate transition planning as a strategic management approach, as opposed to thinking about climate simply as a emissions reduction exercise. So for us, it's really about thinking climate transition planning holistically around what are the specific risks to our business from climate? How many of those are material? And then on the flip side, where does climate actually present an opportunity for us, whether that's commercially through product development or an opportunity to think about efficiency in different ways? So that's just to say that in 2022 we set out our first focus and we updated our quantitative targets around climate and supplier engagement. We've done a lot since then to kind of mature our approach and to better understand that risk and opportunity landscape. And of course, those who are familiar on the call will know that you need to think about that on a scenario basis. You can't just do that as a single version of the future. So you have to consider what would our kind of risk and opportunities look like if it was a one and a half degree scenario? Conversely, what would happen actually if we saw more of a delayed transition and slight greater warming, etcetera. So we've been building out our kind of models around that to better understand that. And the reason why that's important is because if you can start to quantify in financial terms what that risk and opportunity looks like, it really helps the business to start to understand it in a language which is more familiar. Telling someone that you've got 400 tons of carbon, it's a very difficult thing to grasp because you can't see it. You don't really know what that's gonna equate to and you don't really know how that compares. But actually, if you can convert things into financial numbers, it's much better, which is something that Marcia touched on earlier around carbon pricing, so internal carbon pricing. And that's something which I think can be a really interesting way to engage people within the organisation to effectively help them understand that running your servers or kind of occupying a building in a certain way or whatever it might be actually does have an environmental impact. If you kind of do the conversion, the currency conversion into financial money, it makes it easier for people to feel accountable and actually have some agency over it. So it kind of helps them to understand what they could do. I think being able to price climate in a business setting is really important. And so I think in terms of priorities for us, it's about updating. We've started to update those models, want to do some more work on that. We want to explore how we can put some better rigorous numbers around climate. But also for us as well, it's about making sure that we've got a continued focus on improving our data gathering and data management around greenhouse gases. It's an emerging area. Greenhouse gas protocol is looking at updating looking at methodologies. So that's something that businesses are going to have to be alive to because the way in which we account for greenhouse gases may well change over time. So yeah, it's about kind of improving our internal data management, upgrading our understanding of climate related risk and opportunity in the business. And also for us as well, we'll be looking at refreshing our climate targets as well because they will be nearing the end of their five year cycle as well. Quite So a lot to do this year actually when you think about it. And all I would say is all of that we're trying to do that in the absence of any sort of firm rules on this. We have mountains of guidance, we have mountains of best practice in terms of whether that's transition plans, whether that's how to model climate risk, but there's no single way of doing this and therefore we are kind of learning as we go in a way, and learning how we can be better. Yes, so some of the things we are working on is on an external basis of how we can increase the services that we provide to our customers. And another example would be our patent site business, where we are looking at global patent data. We have indexed that data to the Sustainable Development Goals, which all the nations of the United Nations adopted in 2015. And we can see climate innovation. Where is that happening? Where is it not? That creates a great opportunity for businesses to look and see which locations and which areas. So that's a driver for us always on the commercial side. I think internally as well, we are interested in where the science based targets initiative is going. They are clarifying their guidance about how we're going to get to net zero when we've done everything that we can and we have by the years ahead to 2040. What are we going to need to do and where do offsets fit within that picture? So part of the proceeds from our internal carbon price will be directed toward carbon dioxide removals, some CDRs, and we're just getting our head around the approach that we want to take. And there's no shortage of would be service providers, what's gonna really make sense for us. And we also need those standard setters to be very clear because businesses need certainty. We need to understand what those requirements are so that we can plan accordingly. So that's definitely on our agenda. On the supply chain side or the value chain side, we have an SPTI scope three target, which includes asking our suppliers to set their own science based targets in addition to just reducing the impact that we have through our supply chain. And so, we try and do lots of different things. So, we hold annual supplier sessions. We don't have all the answers. We're learning all the time, but we have the member of our team that's our environment expert. He just recently presented to our suppliers on our journey on setting science based targets and how they can go about doing that. So, the kind of carrot side, obviously businesses always need to be ensuring that their suppliers meet the same standards that they set. That often involves the stick in terms of auditing requirements and so forth. But we really believe that engagement works effectively. So that is also on the list. But we have a convening power, and all businesses do. And I love how Jane does this because one of the ways she convenes is she has a Chief Sustainability Officer Network. She gets us together so we can share best practice. It's a little bit of therapy too, so that's always useful. But for RELX, we've been holding our RELX Inspiration Day over the last seven years and since COVID it's been virtual. And our theme this year is on climate. So what we need to do is bring lots of people together for practical solutions and also get some thought leaders. We're very fortunate to have had Benky Moon, the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations with us in all our previous iterations, and we're looking forward to what he has to say as the kind of godfather, if you will, of the Paris Climate Agreement on advancing this agenda. So, this is a shameless plug, Charlie, but it's the June 4. It's completely free and people can find that on the RELX SDG Resource Center. This is a free resource for the world that we created. There is content that sometimes would be behind a paywall, and it is curated and made available from across our business, but also from key partners like Global Citizen or from within the UN system. And that includes most recently a special issue that we did where we go out to all of our editors at Elsevier and they give us book chapters and articles, which we did for COP and which we will do again this year. So yeah, just kind of that mix between, you know, having our own house in order and then also looking externally at what's happening in the value chain, but also where we can add value part of those unique contributions that I was mentioning. Was That's incredible. Going to echo what Marcy was saying about supplier engagement, and that's something that we're continuing to do this year. We've got, again, we a target around supplier engagement, and I think the supply chain is one of those areas that for lots of businesses, it's where the majority of their footprint, their climate footprint sits. So, you know, really sort of getting involved in that supplier conversation is super important and like Marcia, I'll say we sort of are asking our suppliers to adopt their own science aligned targets as well. That's almost like that's the first thing that we could do. Say, well, we are trying to operate in this way. We're trying to orientate ourselves as a business in this direction. Can you also help us and orientate yourselves in the same way? And that I think is an interesting area because it's again it's an opportunity to deepen those relationships with suppliers who you are working with and build out that relationship and build out the conversation with them as well. So I think so much of sustainability is about kind of bridging kind of relationships and actually really sort of getting down to a sort of a shared understanding of what each party is trying to achieve and actually working out well kind of what you can work on together as well. That comes down to customers as well. I mean, Marty has talked about some of the external developments. We too on climate continue to innovate for our customers. And I think it's easy if you read the headlines to think that actually companies are standing still or rolling back on sustainability. I just don't think that there's I don't necessarily think that that is entirely the case. Certainly for us, we still have customers wanting to partner with us, climate related data packages, wanting climate related indices, wanting the ability to issue green bonds and sustainable bonds on our marketplace lots of examples of those. It doesn't feel like companies are slowing down on sustainability. I think they might be kind of resetting a little bit and thinking more about that value creation element than perhaps before and maybe taking the opportunity just to make sure that whatever they're doing is focused on the right things and focused on long term value creation and risk management. But it doesn't feel like things are going backwards particularly quickly, so careful what you read and interpret from the press. I've got a little question that's come in here that I feel like touched on something we and potentially for the first time that I've had an interview this year we haven't touched on particularly, which is AI. So I wondered if I could just we are running out of time, but just grab your thoughts on that before we go. So what do you think the role of AI is going to be for sustainability in 2026? Or how are your teams looking to use it or using it? I don't know who wants to jump in first on that. Okay, so I gave an example of how we're using AI for our internal customers and to help them to address customer inquiries. But as a company that uses artificial intelligence in the delivery of our products and services and the analytics that we provide to our customers, it's absolutely critical. So, it is embedded in what we do and we're finding new ways all the time to make the workflows of our customers faster, like in our legal business or in our science business. But of course, there's the flip side of AI. Relics was one of the first companies probably in The UK that had responsible artificial intelligence principles in the public domain. We're constantly updating them. And one of the things that we'll be doing this year is specifically referencing the environmental impact of AI, putting ourselves on record that we work to minimize that, to understand that. And going back to something Jane said earlier about the importance of working within your sector, we are a founding member of the Digital Impact of Media, and we have a work stream on the environmental impact of AI because those solutions are going to come by working together. Amazing. Jane, have you got anything quick to add on that? Yeah, not dissimilar actually. Think that AI presents a great opportunity for organisations like us to be able to take our product to another level for customers. And we too have responsible AI principles that we embed in the way that we use AI to make that we're doing it in a way which is of course responsible. But we're also trying to work out, okay, well, can we quantify the flip side in terms of additional AI adding to energy consumption and what does that mean for our climate impact, for that other environmental impacts like on water etc. So again, this is about we are seeing both risk and opportunity and we've just got to manage both of them, so I don't think this is an either or. I don't think this is a good and totally it's like AI presents great opportunities for sustainability within organisations to be more efficient, etc, but also globally as well. Just thinking about the possibilities that AI might afford us in terms of understanding what's going on in the climate scenario quicker, better data analysis at scale. The possibilities are endless. We have run out of home, I'm afraid. Are there any closing messages you want to leave on? Any call to actions for our audience? Well, I think you just mentioned Relix's Inspiration Day, and I missed the opportunity to alert viewers to a podcast series that LSEG has. It's called the LSEG Sustainable Growth Podcast, which I have the honor of hosting and get to speak to some amazing guests. It's available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, so check it out, LSAG Sustainable Growth Podcast to listen to some amazing conversations. Amazing, looking forward to having a listen. And Martija? Well, one podcast reference deserves another, so invite me as a guest and I'll do likewise, have you talk to us. We have the World We Want podcast, which I had the pleasure of hosting. It's available on all places that you get your podcasts, but also on New Relic's STG Resource Centre. So we're focusing on what kind of world should we want and how do we get it. I love that. Lots and lots of listening for our lovely listeners. Well, thank you both so much for joining me today. I feel like we dug into so many different parts and I'm really excited to see where both of you take it for 2026 and and what our listeners and watchers take away from it. For our audience, the recording of this webinar will be available shortly, so you can come back and watch it all over again if you so wish. But you can also catch more webinars just like this over on the Sustainability Magazine website. Just head to sustainabilitymag.com. And of course, if you want to see incredible leaders like Jane and Marcia on stage in person, tickets are available for Sustainability Live, the Net Zero Summit, which is taking place in London on the March. But for now, thank you again to both my incredible guests. Thank you for watching and we'll see you soon.