Marisa Drew

Marisa Drew joined Standard Chartered Bank as Chief Sustainability Officer in 2022, and during her short tenure has positioned the bank as a leader on sustainable finance. This year Standard Chartered partnered with global accounting firm KPMG and the United Nations to publish the market’s first guidelines on climate adaptation finance, a big step toward unlocking private capital flows to help developing countries adapt to the climate crisis.

What is the single most important action you think the public, or a specific company or government (other than your own), needs to take in the next year to advance the climate agenda?

The one action that could move the needle the most on climate is for governments around the world to enact those policy changes that will facilitate the mobilization of private capital at scale.  The success of initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S., green weighting of capital in the United Kingdom and European Union, or climate capacity building initiatives in the developing markets can be massive catalysts for the private sector to ensure that large scale, game-changing climate projects can get funding at speed.

What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year, and why?

Assuming you mean something away from my “day job,” having already purchased a fully electric vehicle, I will endeavor to do three things: First, really concentrate on my eating habits to move to even more sustainable options (less meat, select organically grown, regeneratively farmed products, sustainably packaged goods etc.); second, reduce and manage household waste, both packaging and composting. This is an under-focused problematic topic; and third, buy fewer things. We need to change unnecessary consumption habits. Individual actions like these do add up to meaningful outputs. 

What is a climate solution (other than your own) that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?

Adaptation and mitigation. Hundreds of billions of dollars of private capital need to be invested in adapting to climate change and creating resilience in our systems to deal with the increasingly devastating effects of climate change. Less than 10% of climate finance is flowing to adaptation.

Where should climate activism go in the next year?

Climate activists should focus on being more collaborative with those who have the power to make the change they want to see. For instance, we are collaborating with conservation NGOs extremely effectively to drive private capital toward conservation. This was unheard of only a few years ago.  Like-minded actors with a common mission can make a beautiful marriage that delivers meaningful impact through radical collaboration versus confrontation.

If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next U.N. climate conference, what would you say?

Look at the extraordinary examples of best practice across markets to showcase and replicate what is working (and learn from what is not) instead of arguing about how hard it is to get the job done or trying to protect individual interests at the expense of the global outcomes we need.  With a commitment to copy the “best of the best” and collectively tackle the big blockers, great change can happen, and it can lift prosperity and resilience for everyone without needing to sacrifice some at the expense of others.