How the Sustainable Markets Initiative convenes the public and private sectors to drive solutions
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I'm Lindsay Hall. And I'm Esther Wieldon. Welcome to All Things Sustainable, a podcast from S&P Global. As your hosts, we'll dive into all the sustainability topics that are reshaping the business world. Join us every Friday for in-depth analysis and interviews with leaders from around the globe. Together, we'll break down big sustainability headlines and cut through the jargon.

A topic we discuss quite a bit on this podcast is that solutions to the world's big sustainability challenges require coordinated work by all stakeholders. And what role does the public sector play? What role does the private sector play? And how do you bring those two together? Well, today we're talking with an organization focused on just this challenge, the Sustainable Markets Initiative.

The Sustainable Markets Initiative, or SMI, is a network of over 250 global CEOs across finance and industry. The SMI facilitates private sector diplomacy with the ambition of making sustainability the driving force of global markets and value creation.

S&P Global is a proud member, and today we're excited to launch a new series of the All Things Sustainable podcast in collaboration with the Sustainable Markets Initiative. We're calling it the TerraCarta series based on the SMI's TerraCarta mandate. This is the guiding mandate for the SMI and sets ambitious and practical action to help the private sector accelerate progress toward a sustainable future.

The name Terracarta is a play on the Magna Carta, and the history buffs in our audience will know that this is effectively the first written constitution in European history. We'll be releasing episodes throughout 2025 as part of this Terracarta series, featuring interviews with SMI member CEOs from across industries and around the world. To start us off, today I'm talking to SMI CEO Jennifer Jordan-Syphe.

Jen talks to us about how the organization got started by the Prince of Wales, who is now the UK's King, King Charles. She talks to us about lessons learned from the SMI's first five years and also what to expect from a five-year anniversary event the initiative is holding in London, March 10th and 11th. She also talks about how member companies are navigating a challenging sustainability landscape and keeping focused on the long term. Okay, here's our conversation.

The SMI is a group of over 250 CEOs from all different industries and financial sectors working to advance a sustainable future and take steps towards that together and wherever possible to accelerate these ambitions. Established in 2020, it's really become the go-to prep sector organization on

sustainable transition. They've really done that through first of all, becoming a coalition of the willing. So, you know, coming together and saying they're willing to work together. And now increasingly the coalition of the doing is, you know, working on implementation on what makes business sense, which is I think what's really unique.

And, you know, having a group of global CEOs with such enormous reach across the global economy, there's just this real opportunity to have systems level change. And as we

connect the private sector into governments and align private sector objectives with public sector objectives, then we really start to see transformational change happening in a way that's really positive for economic growth, for trade, for jobs. And that's really what the SMI is about. And talk to me about the impetus or what led to the creation of this initiative.

So we really take inspiration from His Majesty King Charles, at the time Prince of Wales, you know, having 50 years of campaigning and leadership on climate related issues.

I think that his vision and his early efforts, you know, were often at the time, like way ahead of his time and criticized. And over time, the world caught up with the Paris Climate Agreement, with the SDGs, with the Convention on Biological Diversity, etc.

We started seeing that there was a common global approach being advanced, common global goals. The majority of the world's countries agreed to them, and 2030 was a really important milestone. And

you know what started to become evident as time marches on is that governments alone don't have the trillions of dollars required to actually deliver on these goals and targets and that's where the king and then prince of wales really felt that if he could help mobilize the global private sector and get them to understand what governments are trying to achieve and the role that they critically need to play in it

then we might have a chance of success. And that's really what the SMI was born to do. I am fascinated by this question of what role does private sector play? What role does public sector play? And how do they work together? This is actually a key issue that we cover on this podcast. And it sounds like really that's at the heart of the work that you do as well at the SMI.

Yeah, absolutely. And we sort of coined a term called private sector diplomacy. And I myself, I used to be a diplomat. And coming into work with the private sector, you know, you realize that the public sector and the private sector speak very different languages. And there needs to be a bit of a bridge.

And I think that's what the SMI actually helps us do is really communicate across more traditional boundaries by bringing these two communities together to find workable solutions. And not just like you see maybe in the past as I point fingers, as we all need to be part of a constructive conversation and increasingly like an innovative conversation.

conversation because this transition to a sustainable future has never been done before and there's no guidebook on how to do it. And so we have to really put our heads together and say like, you know, what resources, what talent, what innovative models can we come up with that will help us address this?

this increasingly urgent reality that we're facing. And that openness to dialogue is really critically important, which is also why we try to bring global CEOs to the top tables of heads of government and heads of state so that decisions can be taken faster. Because often we find decision-making times in the public sector are very different than decision-making times in the private sector. And sometimes we need that speed and scale of the private sector to help us actually achieve really important global goals.

Jen said that the private sector needs to work hand-in-hand with government, too.

One of the challenges I find is that when we're looking at this challenge, we look at it maybe at a country level or we look at it at an industry level. But in fact, like all countries are connected from an economic standpoint through supply chains and the private sector, as we sort of gathered industry by industry, they realize that they're also dependent on each other. And so over time, the journey for us has been, OK, let's get coalitions of the willing in finance and aviation and shipping and fashion and health together.

But then they realized that actually even aviation needs energy and aviation also needs agriculture. If we're looking at SAF or sustainable aviation fuel. So the interdependencies across the global economy, across traditional borders, makes this quite a complex systems level operation. And the SMI is really designed to meet everyone in the middle to be this highest level of convening. And we call that

really private sector diplomacy because there's no United Nations for the private sector. We have a privilege of being a high-level convening platform where we can bring those global CEOs with solutions together with world leaders and multilateral leaders to say, we've got some solutions here and we're ready to work with you.

We heard Jen mention the SDGs. Those are the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which 193 countries adopted in 2015 to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and protect the planet, all by 2030.

Jen also talked about workable solutions, constructive conversation, and openness to dialogue. And all this is very important in early 2025 as many businesses are navigating a changing sustainability landscape and a continued fraught geopolitical environment. These topics will be in focus as the SMI celebrates its five-year anniversary in London, March 10th and 11th. And I asked Jen to tell me more about what to expect. 2025 is 10 years since the Paris Climate Agreement started.

It's five years since the SMI was established, five years to 2030 when many of these global goals, that was their target deadline, and 25 years to 2050. So just within that sort of time horizon, one critical thing that we realize is that

We really do need to think long term. We need to commit ourselves to long term goals and really stick with them no matter what political cycles happen around the world and recognizing that there are continuous changes that are happening across all countries all the time. But the private sector has the opportunity and the ability to sort of look at that longer term horizon and also to maybe educate the public sector about that. So

For us, the five-year point and our summit that's taking place later in March is going to be focusing on reflecting on what the private sector has achieved over the past five years, which is really impressive.

Industry by industry, the prep sector has been both investing but delivering on solutions all over the world at massive scales. And I think it's not often talked about. And we want to be able to provide those concrete examples to provide a level of assurance that things are moving in the right direction and we can have confidence in that and we can build off of that.

And that's really sort of the purpose is one to reflect back on the past five years, but then reinvigorate everyone's energy to sort of keep going and raise their levels of ambition, enhance the collaboration globally, learn from each other and keep going. And I have to say change is difficult. A transition this large is an enormous task and we just have to have the resolve and moral courage to keep going.

Jen talked about what she called the coalition of the doing and the importance of implementation and solutions. This is a topic we focus on a lot on this podcast. How do you go beyond high-level talking points and goals to those concrete solutions? Here's Jen again.

What we have collectively learned over the past five years is that the private sector does need a seat at the table, whether it's us attending for the first time ever the G7 meeting with G7 world leaders, so heads of state and heads of government, to put the private sector's voice on the map, or similarly the G20 showing up at COP26 in a way that has never happened before. I think one of the key accomplishments is really...

acknowledging that the private sector needs to be part of the conversation and it can't act in isolation. We talk sometimes about corporate social responsibility or good global citizenship.

But we are all sharing one planet. And for us to have a sustainable economy moving forward, one that's offering prosperity to all, we need to take care of the resources that the planet provides us. And so that's, you know, whether it's our biodiversity or addressing emissions. And so I think

It's been an education over the past five years for the private sector to really understand the issues, to commit themselves to those issues as a coalition of the willing, and then getting a seat at the table so that they can become the coalition of the doing. And that's sort of where we are right now. I'd say some other key successes is that we have worked industry by industry where they are really proud of the work that they've been achieving, whether that's on the shifts in energy,

better understanding energy markets, looking at things like blended finance and recognizing that the transition has to be for everyone all around the world in developed and developing markets and allowing the private sector to really get engaged in the solutioning for some of these more difficult issues and working much more closely with governments and multilateral institutions like the World Bank, for example.

You mentioned developing emerging markets. What is the geographic mix or focus for the Sustainable Markets Initiative? So it's genuinely global. Again, a lot of our member CEOs are multinational global companies. We also are active. We have a China Council. We have an Africa Council.

regional hub. We have a Latin America regional hub, a North America regional hub, and we're trying to connect the global efforts to more local regional realities. And our companies are sort of operating in multiple geographic regions. And it's like how we apply the transition in different contexts. I would say that if you look at

the trends, a lot more finance goes to the developed economies than the developing economies. And increasingly, it's just how to address those financial challenges so that the capital can flow more freely into emerging and developing markets. Okay, thank you. And can you tell me more about what does that outreach look like when you're on the ground, when you are starting to work with or recruit member CEOs? What kinds of conversations are you having?

So, I mean, the great thing is that we have a solid base across, as I mentioned, over 20 different industry sectors and subsectors. I think that the conversation when we engage with CEOs is that if you really want to be part of the solution, if you want to really engage meaningfully in this topic and have

a material impact for your business, but also for the global economy and for addressing these global goals, then the SMI is a wonderful community for you to be part of. We are one of the only CEO-led organizations out there. And I do find that CEOs have a very unique approach

bird's eye view and a long-term view that very few people have. And I would say like world leaders, so heads of state and heads of government have a similar very high level worldview where they can sort of understand all aspects of what's happening in their company or what's happening in the market.

and what's going to be happening long term, and then take that strategic insight and then operationalize it for a systemic transition. And that's really why the SMI is attractive to the CEO community. They get to be side by side with their peers. The SMI offers

a neutral umbrella. So, you know, we don't hail one CEO over another or one industry over another. We really genuinely feel that we're all in together. We're all here to learn and everyone's on different stages of this journey of transition and we welcome everybody. So I think that's what we offer our members. And when we're engaging with companies, we want to bring in people who are just at the beginning of their journey, as well as the people who are really at the forefront leading the innovation of these journeys.

And so it's a really dynamic group. Okay, thank you. You mentioned also that there are many different industries involved in this initiative. And we have listeners across industries. So just wondering if there's any observations you can share in terms of either wins or challenges. Yeah, we've seen some interesting successes.

For example, I think a lot of people will talk about sustainable aviation fuel. The SMI, along with other key partners, were really pushing for the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel mandates, which was achieved in the past five years. And now that's translating into the practical side of creating both supply and demand and making sure that this is operationalized and also financed.

from an economic point of view. And so the hard part is like the will to get things done, agreeing certain parameters, and then the hard stuff actually comes when you're implementing. Other areas, you know, that maybe people might be surprised by is the health industry. We have a health systems task force led by some of the world's largest health and pharmaceutical companies. And they've really rallied in coming together around things like power purchase agreements for energy, sort of green energy supply, looking at things

at things like packaging, looking at emissions reductions, so like how health services are offered and delivered, their logistics, how they reduce emissions across that. And what they've realized again is that while they can do things individually, they actually can do a lot more as an industry together.

So again, the standardizing issues around packaging, but also coming together with that demand for green energy. So that's been quite interesting. And then things like fashion. We have amazing luxury fashion brands in the SMI, but we still have to tackle the issue of fast fashion and recognize that's one of the most polluting sectors. And we also see challenges around slavery and fashion and how do we handle that as an SMI? What's our responsibility to promote fashion?

responsible consumerism. Like how do we make the sustainable alternatives, the attainable alternatives? And so fashion is an area where I think there's much more to do. But I think in all of our industries, it is really vital that the consumers play a role so that the demand is there and the economics all make sense. The consumerism

companies are providing what the customers and clients are going to be purchasing. And that's a link that we need to be making even more strongly in the next five years. But I think to do that, you really need to provide a positive and compelling vision of

for people on why sustainable is sort of the better alternative and the more hopeful alternative and that the future isn't just incremental, it's much more inspiring and disruptive. And so I think there's still a lot of work to do there. Okay. And so you bring together CEOs to have these conversations about some of these big topics like you've just laid out. And then what's the sort of next step after you convene the CEOs or what have you seen work well?

Yeah. So the CEOs sort of set the vision and make the decisions. And then what actually happens is the operationalization of that, which happens through their own companies. Right. So, you know, in the SMI, our mandates, the TerraCarta and one of the key principles in the TerraCarta is the default sustainable orientation. So how are companies really transitioning their business models to be much more sustainable from innovation?

internal operations of your emissions of your operations, but also through to your supply chains, like who you're choosing to be in your supply chain and really understanding a lot of that. So, you know, the companies do a lot of work on their own, but also they often come together and join forces, as I mentioned, on things like health power purchase agreements on energy, where, you know, they come together and say, like, let's do this together.

Or when you're talking about sustainable aviation fuel coming together and offering a demand signal of multiple companies and other industry players so that we can send a signal to the market that

the financing can flow into this direction. So there's a lot of work that happens across the company with experts across different companies to actually implement some of the decisions. And also we work closely with governments. So identifying where, you know, there might be continued barriers like things like in energy around permitting times that continue to be a huge challenge for investment and actual delivery of energy targets.

So I would say we've talked a little bit about some of the opportunities or the wins that you've seen. I'd like to dig in on the challenges a bit, too, because this landscape I'm seeing at the start of 2025 is looking quite different from 2021. There's a lot of geopolitical unrest. The U.S. has again been pulled out of the Paris Agreement. What is the impact of that landscape on your members?

So definitely what we've seen over the past five years is a huge amount of momentum in 2020, 2021, where, you know, again, at COP26, for example, we had the private sector, we had world leaders really raising that level of ambition in a very positive way. Of course, around that time, we also had the global pandemic, which in some ways strengthened the resolve. And you saw such amazing progress.

messaging and recognizing that human health, planetary health, and economic health are fundamentally interconnected. But then shortly after that, things resume back to normal. But then we have the crisis in Ukraine, followed shortly after by a crisis in the Middle East, in Israel, and in Gaza.

And this sort of shifted the narrative to energy security, which brought in another, I'd say, a slowdown in the levels of ambition because, you know, energy security took primacy over climate action and emissions reductions. And I think that trend impacted people's understanding about, well, can we achieve, say, EV targets, right? Can we actually meet 2030? Like, is this realistic? And so, you know, what happens in the political realm has a lot of

of impact on the markets. And so, you know, as governments maybe roll back some of their commitments, then investors start considering whether it's time to sort of be as aggressive in their investments. And then that slows down industry delivery.

And so I do think we've seen a bit of a slowdown and obviously, now we're seeing again, mixed messaging. We've seen mixed messaging on ESG for quite some time. What we also have seen on the flip side of that is that in 2024, green energy investments were over 2 trillion.

And so there's an undeniable shift happening in the world where solar is now much more affordable and other renewable energies and green energy alternatives are becoming economic, that now there's an economic case for transition. That's very clear. We continue to see a huge amount of interest and appetite from our companies in continuing on with the transition. But, you know, the unfortunate thing is that we're

while they might remain committed to the agenda, it's very increasingly difficult to talk about it. And that's sort of where I think the SMI can be a helpful voice is that we can still talk about it in the aggregate and be that support system for global CEOs that remain committed to the cause and recognize that all of this benefits all of humanity. And how do we just maintain that momentum is really the challenge we face today.

Jen mentioned that she used to be a diplomat. And one thing we love to do on this podcast when we get to interview CEOs is to ask them about their personal career path. So I asked Jen, how did you find yourself leading the SMI?

I think it's been an interesting journey. So I came to work for His Majesty, then the Prince of Wales as a private secretary in 2018. I was working at that time with Global Affairs Canada, which is our foreign ministry. And the

the King has a private secretary that comes from one of the Commonwealth countries, recognizing that he's the King of 15 realms, Canada being one of them. And it was just a huge privilege to be selected for that role. And my focus there was on foreign affairs, the Commonwealth, as the King is now head of the Commonwealth of 56 member countries and sustainability. And I think my task was

in that effort was really to ensure that we bring diplomacy and private sector and sustainability together. Prior to joining the household and supporting His Majesty, I had a career that started in international humanitarian assistance, working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the United Nations, with USAID and others. And that sort of evolved into a focus on international development.

And through my work in those spheres, I sort of recognized that economic forces are really important to ensuring that communities around the world are able to build the jobs, the prosperity that they need to rely less on development assistance, for example, and to resolve things like conflict.

And so I moved into foreign affairs and I got my MBA because I strongly believe that economic opportunity is really what will pull people out of poverty, will reduce conflict in the world and enhance global cooperation. So that was a bit of my journey to get to working with His Majesty. And I think working with His Majesty has been the highlight of my life. And he's a visionary that we're very lucky as a world to have.

Thank you for sharing. Can you tell me more about how you went from the private secretary role? What led to you taking the reins at the SMI? Yeah, so I helped create the SMI with the King starting about 2018. Again, looking at all the levers that he has.

And the need that he was trying to address in the world at such a large, massive scale, how do we address climate change globally? How do we ensure future generations have a world that they can live off and be proud of? And so that challenge led to the creation of the SMI. And I continued supporting him in running the SMI until he became king again.

I worked with him for about a year or so after he became king, but because of some of the constitutional challenges that he has, running the SMI really needed to be taken outside of the royal household. And so I was entrusted to take that on as CEO so that we could retain the vision that the king has, but operate within the constitutional boundaries of his new role as king. Jen is Canadian, but she told me her family is military, which meant a lot of travel.

So I grew up all over the world, which I think gave me a very global perspective of things. Having lived with different cultures and seen the world from different angles, it really made me committed to trying to do things at a global systems level. So I think I've had a passion that for a long time, a desire to understand how to solve problems from different cultural perspectives and different vantage points.

Is there any moment that you can pinpoint or any memory in particular where you thought, yes, this is the path I'm going to go on? Yeah. You know, I think when I was in high school, I attended the Model United Nations in The Hague. And being there, being part of those delegations, I actually represented Dominica. And I was like the youngest person in that delegation. And I just knew that my future would be around the United Nations and global unity.

I asked Jen if she can share any lessons she's learned about leadership since taking the CEO role at the SMI. Here she is one last time.

Yeah, I think, you know, having been somebody that was really behind the scenes and on all of my previous roles, you know, it's quite different to sort of be out front. I think, you know, running a business is very challenging. So I'm sure many of your listeners will understand, like there's many more aspects to it than you'd think. But the key thing is to make sure that you're very clear on your vision, your mandate, and

continuing to deliver because it's all about delivery and having real world impact. And I think, you know, it's easy to sort of get caught in the details of every day. But if you lose sight of the vision, you know, you're really not going to be effective in ensuring your company succeeds. So keeping that in our minds and keeping everyone's motivations up when in these very turbulent times is a huge challenge, but something that we live every day.

I think that last point you made about the morale in turbulent times is something a lot of our audience will especially be feeling right now. Anything that you've found to be effective when you're trying to do that in your leadership role? I think as CEOs and world leaders, it's just really important to recognize that you're in your seat of leadership for a very short amount of time. And, you know, do you want to have a lasting impact on the world? And if yes, then

Then the positions you take, the decisions you make, the level of ambition you set for yourselves are so critical. And, you know, can you can you look at your children and your grandchildren and say, I've done everything I could possibly do?

And that's really what we try to position in the SMI is that, you know, we are a collective of CEOs. We are serious about making the world a better place for all. And so, you know, I just try to remind them that leadership is a privilege. Being a decision maker and a CEO or a world leader position is an opportunity. And let's not squander that opportunity.

Well, I've asked you a lot of questions today, Jennifer. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you think is important for our listeners to understand about the work that you're doing at the SMI? I think the key message is, you know, we need to come together.

I think it's really important to acknowledge that everyone in the world is going through the same transition. Everyone in the world is being affected by a warmer climate and that what happens in one part of the world has ripple effects across the rest of the world. And the more that we come together, the more we see ourselves as like one people living on one planet,

the further we can go. And I really feel that we also need to be engaging our young people because they have so much to offer, that vision of hope for the future. They can see much further ahead than we can. They have a much more savvy technical mindset than many of us do. And we need to leverage that because we need everyone pulling in the same direction. And I would also really encourage us to think beyond ourselves.

political cycles. Like this type of challenge requires long-term horizon thinking and systems level change. And to change the system, we can't flip-flop. We have to be committed and committed across different governments.

governments, different realities, different borders in an unconventional way. And we also need brand new solutions. We can't cling on to institutions or solutions of the past. We have to be open to co-creating completely new solutions and financial models that will actually make this transition work. And so I just encourage, you know, whether you're an artist, a filmmaker, you

an economist, an auditor, an accountant, like we need everybody in on this because it's a multidisciplinary effort and solution that is required. So I also ask them to just have the highest ambition possible because without that, we're not going to go very far. I love that. I think that's a great note to end on. And thank you again for sharing your time and your perspective with our audience and with me. It's been a pleasure talking to you. You too. Thanks so much.

So today we heard Jen talk about how the SMI aims to shift to a coalition of the doing with a focus on actionable solutions. This includes fostering dialogue between the public and private sectors to create effective strategies for sustainable development. Jen highlighted the need for collective effort across industries and also the importance of engaging younger generations to innovate and push for sustainable solutions. As we heard from Jen, the SMI is hosting its five-year anniversary event on March 10th and 11th.

And this is where we'll be kicking off our Terracotta series of the All Things Sustainable podcast in earnest. We'll be back with more episodes featuring Sustainable Markets Initiative members for this series throughout 2025, so please stay tuned.

You know, Esther, Magna Carta is Latin for the Great Charter. I learned this while researching this episode, and it's funny because I just dissuaded my 12-year-old from taking Latin in seventh grade because, as I told him, it's a dead language. And now I have to say it seems to be popping up everywhere in my life. You know, Lindsay, it's funny you should say that. It's actually been coming up for me in my Master Gardening class.

Just last week, we were learning about the scientific names for insects and plant species. So actually side with your kid on this. I think Latin could be totally useful in certain cases. At two, Esther. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of All Things Sustainable. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, share, and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. And a special thanks to our agency partner, The 199. See you next time.