www.ubs.com/investmentresearch This report has been prepared by UBS AG London Branch. ANALYST CERTIFICATION AND REQUIRED DISCLOSURES BEGIN ON PAGE 22. UBS does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision. Global Research 13 September 2019 Global Sustainability ESG & Sustainability Symposium 2019 1 New Conference; 3 Keynotes; 7 panels, 40 expert panellists, 1 energy debate A pivotal question underpinned our conference: Is it possible to close the gap between enormous efforts in the area of sustainable investing, on the one hand, and continuing environmental and social challenges on the other (carbon emissions rising, biodiversity collapsing, water stress rising, ice bodies at risk, food security at risk, inequality on the rise, precarity in the job market and so on)? This note attempts the impossible task of capturing a huge amount of content in a few pages – for the panels, we provide a few key bullet points. This front page highlights just three hot topics. See also the Oil/Utilities teams' energy debate on p. 14. Recordings are available at this link. Hot Topic – Sustainable Food Innovations Decarbonisation at scale is not possible without considering food production. Subsidy systems for agriculture are skewed in the wrong direction – for instance, land-based "bio-sequestration" needs more support. In the meantime, there is a pressing need for innovative ideas, and our panellists inspired the audience (appropriately just before lunch) with technology-driven empowerment for farmers to be sustainably profitable; waste food upcycling; vertical farming; and meat grown from cell cultures. A Pivotal Answer for ESG Data in Response to an Alphabet Soup Question Our GRASFI panel discussed a key direction for data: a constellation of satellites is taking high-resolution pictures in every point of time, every single day. There is an opportunity to play with AI and experiment with geospatial information for informed financial analysis. This is exciting and potentially transformative, not just for sustainable investing, but also for financial analysis – it adds another dimension to the latter. Innovations that Could Be Transformative for Climate Change According to Keynote speaker Dr. Maria Zuber, key innovations include: fusion energy (a buzz of innovation in high field magnets and prototypes suggests fusion is no longer 40 years away); energy storage (innovation in common as opposed to rare earths will be key here); alternative energy (could transparent solar cells turn every window into a power source?); and carbon sequestration. She notes that unless decarbonisation starts imme...
