The Connector.

The Connector Podcast - SFF 2022 - Greenomy

November 06, 2022 Koen Vanderhoydonk (The Connector), Alexander Stevens Season 1 Episode 9
The Connector.
The Connector Podcast - SFF 2022 - Greenomy
Show Notes Transcript

Join the conversation with Alexander Stevens from Greenomy talking about ESG and sustainability adoption in Asia during the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF 2022). Recorded live at SFF 2022.

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Koen Vanderhoydonk
koen.vanderhoydonk@jointheconnector.com

#FinTech #RegTech #Scaleup #WealthTech

Koen Vanderhoydonk  0:20  
Welcome, everyone, and we back alive from Singapore FinTech festival. And now I have with me, Alex, also from Belgium. But here in Singapore, I heard you have been traveling a lot. Please explain us. Hi, Gordon. Indeed. I've been in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore in the course of one week. Wow, a lot of traveling very intense. And I'm still jet lagged.

Alexander Stevens  0:43  
I'm here for a week and I still jet lag. So I can't believe for you. It's it's horrible. But what have you been doing then? Okay, so, green financing is booming around the world. And you also have these green taxonomies legislations that are being adopted across jurisdictions. And here in Asia Pacific, Malaysia was the first to adopt a taxonomy. And then you have the ASEAN region that's also creating a regional taxonomy framework. Hong Kong, Singapore is on their way of adopting their own framework. So what we've seen, you know, in Europe with the taxonomy, and the challenges being faced by banks, as managers, issuers, or the financial players, will also happen in other jurisdictions. So we're here to see you know, where the different countries stand, and where potentially, we can assist. And maybe for the audience, I would like to just go in the helicopter for one minute. When you talk taxonomy. Can you just explain a little bit more what that that mean? Absolutely. Yeah. So taxonomy, basically, let's say your company, and your activity is producing hydrogen. Now, to be considered sustainable, you have to go through a series of screening criterias. And for example, for hydrogen, you have to emit less than 1.4 tons of co2, tons of product. And so today, green taxonomies basically tell companies to measure how much of their turnover capex OPEX is aligned to this taxonomies, how much are they're really sustainable in practice. And this data is then taken into account by asset managers, banks, to screen their portfolios, loan books, and assess the overall sustainability of how they've located their capital. So it's an indicator of where you stand today in terms of stability.

Alexander Stevens  2:35  
And by measuring it, you can also know how to improve it over time. So how to reach those thresholds for the next 30 years, and help your activities to become more and more sustainable. Then I think you're at the right festival today, because the whole week was around sustainability.

Introduction  0:01  
Welcome to the connector podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs banks and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder toe and Vander Heiden as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  2:53  
Do you see like you said earlier said that Singapore is now heading towards the taxonomy as well. Is this like similarities? Are we like from the ground of building a system? Which is the same everywhere interoperability, as they call it nicely? Or not?

Alexander Stevens  3:08  
Indeed, so Singapore? To me, yes, would project Greenprint is really one of the most advanced ESG FinTech ecosystem in the world. And taxonomies have a lot of similarities, I would say roughly 60% of the components of these international taxonomies is the same as the same logic, but you still want to have local specificities because the economies are different. The level of development of all countries are different. So there's different parties. And hence, the idea for us is well, going to a country codify this national taxonomy into the infrastructure. Take into account the local specificities, create equivalence tables, what's done in other countries, other jurisdictions, and enable the local financial industry that assures the banks asset managers to perform the reporting generate data and share with other international capital markets. So we create as bridges between all the infrastructures recruit, we've set up across Europe, the UK, South Africa, and other regions, and help this data flow. And that means, for example, a Singapore and isher would submit the data onto the Singapore taxonomy. We will then match it to the European framework so that, for example, Irish asset manager would be able to understand this information and then take their investment decision and vice versa.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  4:33  
Yeah, because at the end of the day, we don't want to be greenwashing. Now, earlier in your your answer you said we and I maybe didn't ask you in the beginning but when you say we what does it stand for?

Alexander Stevens  4:45  
Greener me is now Tim 65 people. Wow, growing fast absolutely very fast. So based in Brussels, the headquarters in Belgium but half of the team is across Europe and five international locations. And one of them is here in Singapore. Now, we are Team of sustainability experts, financial experts, engineers, data analysts that have set up this infrastructure. We're very lucky that we also have some very important strategic partners and shareholders behind us. And one of them is you're clear, the international financial market infrastructure. So you're clear came into our capital in January, and they're not helping us scale. And this infrastructure, bringing their own network and creating, you know, the credibility and reference as an infrastructure for ESG. And we now have set up also user committee of all the different banks and major players that are using our infrastructure, so that they can also help to get a shape, the infrastructure, what exactly needs to be developed further, whether it's in Europe, all the other jurisdictions, were present.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  5:59  
I think congratulate win or not think I'm 100%? Sure. Congratulations with that collaboration with Euroclear. Thank you, because I got passionated by you, when we met the first time when you said the words user owned user governance. And that for me sounded immediately like you're clear. Maybe, can you can you explain what does that mean? And what does that mean, actually, for greener me.

Alexander Stevens  6:21  
So that means, you know, we're talking here of climate change, okay, and he or she data should be freely available, because it's one thing to get the data to the reporting clients. But at the end of the day, all of this is set up, to keep improving your sustainability make a transition. And so that's why our goal is to create an infrastructure and bring in connectors that can then distribute it further today on networks, instead of having multiple solutions in their corners. We bring everyone together. That's how we have a global alliance. Now with Deloitte partnership with echovirus, the leading ESG software, we have a partnership, yes, announced yesterday in Germany with trufa, the German credit bureau, where they're gonna go to the network of 10,000 corporates, and I'm bringing the German banks on board. So you have, you know, a whole economy, whole German markets coming in through these partners. And so by being a user, having users, committee, user owner, owners, the idea is to bring this parties together, work together on the same topic, neutralize the efforts reduce the, the costs, at the end of the day, the compliance cost of this legislation, and EU alone is 2.5 billion euros, it's a lot of money. And with digitalization, you can reduce it and make it accessible to all sustainability reporting should be democratized algorithms. And that's our key mission. And what the data then allow all these players to think how they can allocate the capital towards those projects that most sustainable and then accelerate the transition. And that's really, when I started going to me, that was the key goal, as I saw the 650 pages of legislation, said, that's fantastic. But in practice, how will it work? And so bring in digitalization tools to facilitate its implementation, not waste any time with the little time we have to, you know, save the planet, and then bring everyone together and work towards this common mission?

Koen Vanderhoydonk  8:18  
A very personal question, Alex, when do you sleep? Well,

Alexander Stevens  8:23  
with the jetlag very, very little here. But I'm very fortunate to have a very competent team. And we're all working very hard. At the same time, we're driven by this mission, you know, we were motivated by the fact that things are going very well. And we're growing. But we're working quite good. And we have partners helping us out and it is intense, but at the same time, the mission is worth it. And so we'll keep going and we'll keep pushing.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  8:52  
And I'm glad you say that. I was also in a panel earlier this week, around ESG. And while the discussion almost started to go in, like a technical discussion, and I kind of brought it back like, ladies and gentlemen, we are saving the planet. This is our mission. I mean, it should justify everything that we do right. Now, you said you have been traveling like all these Asian countries and meeting a lot of people and you say already, there's some slight differences, but maybe coming back to being here today at the Singapore FinTech festival. What has struck you what us what was your first impression?

Alexander Stevens  9:31  
First of all, it's probably one of the best FinTech festivals I've been at certainly the biggest one. The key here is there is an entire section here dedicated to eg fintechs under the project Greenprint initiative, and what Lionel as and his team have established here in Singapore as an ecosystem is unbelievable. And this is definitely an inspiration. I'm also here coming to see what's being done And, and what we can learn from and how we can collaborate. And so you have here, half a hole full of EG fintechs from here in the region, but also internationally together, working towards the same mission. And and that that's really certainly what amazed me most.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  10:19  
Make sense? It also did something to me also. Well, I will read closely to the end of this podcast. So if there would be like one advice that you could give to the listeners, and maybe also I'm helping you a little bit, well, if they want to know more about greenery, maybe that should be in your advice to

Alexander Stevens  10:38  
my advice. First of all, as we started, little, you know, but the key is also the mission you select, you know, if you go ahead, launch your project, think about a mission because the mission will bring motivation, energy. We are very lucky, the core team I started with, no, we were difficult days we push through. But also we found very good partners that trusted in us very early, and they help us move forward. And that's also what explains how fast things have done done for us. So pick the right mission. And you have many there's not only climate changes, many other challenges, and so, you know, dedicate your time, your resources towards that and it will help you go forward. And, you know, as we're expanding, we're obviously looking for more talent to join us. Greener me, we have a website, we have a blog, we also have a greenery Academy, that is there to train people about sustainability, sustainable finance, and it's all about Virgo rising democratising the sector. So, if you're interested, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to talk with you. Excellent, and

Koen Vanderhoydonk  11:49  
definitely an extension to the audience. And thank you so much for these inspiring words. Alex, thank you for joining me. I know you're very tired because of all the traveling and all the hard work. You're doing all that for the beggar cause being net 01 day. So thank you so much. Thank you also to the audience. Thank you for tuning in. And please stay tuned because more FinTech news will come straight from Singapore FinTech festival. Thank you.

Alexander Stevens  12:15  
Thank you very much. Thank you to the connector. You're welcome.

Introduction  12:18  
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