Next-level climate intelligence: introducing our Policy Advisory Board

Grid of headshots of Watershed Policy Advisory Board

Today, Watershed launched a new Policy Advisory Board. Its members bring decades of combined experience in climate policy, science, and regulation and are committed to helping Watershed customers navigate the new climate economy. The board includes the key architects of the new wave of global climate policy—at the SEC, TCFD, CDP, and beyond—and will be chaired by Mark Carney, who has been a strategic advisor to Watershed since 2022.

This comes at a pivotal moment for global climate policy and regulation. Mandatory climate disclosure is becoming the norm around the world, with a rigor once reserved for financial disclosure. Investors expect companies to have climate transition plans in place, and carbon markets are under increasing scrutiny. Meanwhile, new opportunities are emerging: renewable energy is more affordable than it’s ever been, and in the US, the Inflation Reduction Act is injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon technologies.

With guidance from our new Policy Advisory Board, we’re excited to give companies the necessary tools—with policy expertise and climate intelligence baked in—to help them succeed in the climate economy. The Board includes former leaders from the institutions and frameworks defining the new climate policy landscape, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the UK’s Financial Services Authority, CDP, and the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (IC-VCM). These leaders have rare insight into the direction of climate policy and implications for businesses.

Watershed’s new Policy Advisory Board members join our existing team of climate experts, scientists, consultants, investors, and advisors, including John Doerr, Michael Moritz, Dr. Sangwon Suh, Dr. Steve Davis, and Christiana Figueres.

Our new advisors include:

Robert J. Jackson Jr. served as an SEC commissioner from 2018 to 2020 where he was an outspoken advocate for protecting investors, calling for more transparency in capital markets, and championing evidence-driven policymaking. Jackson is co-director of the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance, and director of the Program on Corporate Law and Policy at the New York University School of Law. Previously, he was on the faculty of the Columbia Law School and served as a senior policy advisor at the US Treasury Department.

Annette Nazareth served as an SEC commissioner from 2005 to 2008. In 2021, she was appointed co-chair of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, setting and enforcing global standards for high-integrity voluntary carbon markets. She is currently a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell where she works on regulatory matters and transactions. Prior to her appointment as an SEC commissioner, Nazareth served as the SEC’s director of the Division of Market Regulation.

Sarah Bloom Raskin is a Partner at Kaya Advisory, Ltd, a climate advisory firm. After serving as first a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, and then as the Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury, Raskin emerged as a leading voice in understanding climate change as it pertains to the economy and financial markets. She is the Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at the Duke Law School where she teaches Business Associations, Law and Financial Anxiety, and Climate Change and Financial Markets.

Curtis Ravenel is a senior advisor to the co-chairs and vice chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and a founding member of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Ravenel founded the Sustainable Business & Finance Group at Bloomberg LP and served as its global head. Under his leadership, Bloomberg integrated sustainability considerations into the firm’s operations globally and developed a full range of sustainable finance products to evaluate sustainability-related risks and opportunities for finance professionals. He was appointed by the Obama administration to serve on the US chapter of the G8 Advisory Board on Impact Investing in 2013, and received the Columbia Business School Exemplary Leadership Award in 2016.

Tom Rivett-Carnac OBE is a former political strategist for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and former president and CEO of CDP North America. Rivett-Carnac co-founded Global Optimism with Christiana Figueres in 2016. The organization builds transformative partnerships that tackle the climate crisis with the conviction, scale, and speed that science demands. He also leads Global Optimism’s work as co-founder of the Climate Pledge, a partnership with Amazon that brings together more than 200 influential companies with the shared objective of reaching net zero by 2040.

Mary Schapiro has had a distinguished career as a financial services regulator under four US presidents from both political parties. Schapiro is the only person to have served as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Schapiro is vice chair for Global Public Policy of Bloomberg and vice chair for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

Paul Simpson OBE is the co-founder and former CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the global nonprofit that drives companies, cities and governments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Simpson is a prominent thought leader on climate change, with a focus on the actions governments, companies, and investors must take to deliver the Paris Agreement and keep the world at no more than 1.5°C of warming. He is a strategic advisor to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and was previously a high-level panel member for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Lord Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs, and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2°C by 2040, while stimulating economic development and social progress. Previously, he was chair of the UK’s Financial Services Authority and was the first chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK government on policies to reach zero CO2 emissions by 2050. He served as the vice chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe and director at McKinsey & Company. He became a crossbench member of the UK House of Lords in 2006.

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