SciX at Responsible Investor Europe 2026

Speakers

• Shahyar Safaee, Deputy CEO and Business Development Director, SciX, an EDHEC Venture
• Thibaut Heurtebize, Global Market – ESG structurer, BNP Paribas CIB
• Lindsay Ireland, Co-head of Equities, The People’s Partnership
• Moderator: Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker, Editor, Responsible Investor

SciX Experts at the Conference

Topics covered during the session

• What are the challenges in designing a physically resilient index?
  The biggest challenge is data: investors do not sufficiently trust physical climate risk data to use it in investment decisions and portfolio construction. Data coverage remains incomplete, methodologies vary across providers, and there is no widely accepted standard for measuring resilience.

• What can physically resilient equity indices offer investors?
  A systematic way solution to reduce a portfolio’s exposure to physical climate risks while preserving diversified market exposure. Resilient indices and their associated analytics can also be valuable for portfolio construction and manager oversight. Ultimately, resilient indices can help investors address their fiduciary risk.
  
  
• Is there a publicly recognized top-down foundational framework investors can build upon? What are the challenges in taking a top-down, portfolio-wide approach to climate risk and resilience?
  Yes, the publicly available frameworks such as NGFS’ and IPCC’s climate scenarios are seen as a common reference for resilience. Those scenarios can be “downscaled” to the country, sector, and company level, and turned into company-level equity valuation shocks.
  
  One challenge is that a top-down portfolio-level framework may not always have the appropriate level of granularity for the investment strategy considered. This is when company-level data can enrich the methodology and help make more precise selection and allocation decisions.
  
  Another challenge, although common to both top-down and bottom-up approaches is to carefully manage the unintended consequences of introducing a climate risk objective in the portfolio construction process. This means controlling for biases, concentrations and tracking error when applicable.

• What will investors need to see to start adopting physically resilient indices? How are diverse investors’ needs shaping thinking about resilience equity indices?
  Investors will need more reliable and “decision-useful” data and greater transparency around the methodologies. This will facilitate the implementation of practical investment decisions based on climate resilience indicators and data, while controlling for other investment objectives.
  
  Demand from investors is likely to evolve from simple monitoring and risk reporting toward portfolio construction, manager selection, and dedicated resilience investment strategies.

To learn more about Responsible Investor Conference 2026
👉 Responsible Investor Conference 2026