From Ambition to Action Financing the Transition to a Green Economy

Please take a seat. Good morning, your highness, your excellencies, distinguished guests. Thank you so much for joining us here this morning and welcome to the final day of Abu Dhabi Finance Week and the Sustainable Finance Forum. This year's edition is hosting leaders representing 62 trillion in assets. So, I'm really excited to be with you for the final day and I am honored to be sitting next to you, your highness.

Thank you so much.

Your highness, you're an entrepreneur, an academic, an environmentalist, and a leader in sustainability, climate change, and you're a CEO. It's this inspiring story. I am so inspired, and I know that this audience is as well. I just want to begin today by hearing how you got here and a little bit about your story. Thank you.

Since I was very young, I enjoyed being out in nature. It's always been a passion of mine to go out riding in the desert um and to really be in the great outdoors and we're very fortunate here in the UAE to have a lot of nature and places to to enjoy it. Um, I've also been very fortunate to have two incredible leaders. My great-grandfather, his highness, the late Zultan, founder of the UAE, and my grandfathered, his highness Khalifa, um, who also, uh, cared deeply about the environment. Uh but back in 2011, I went on a humanitarian trip with my parents to Somalia and that was the first time I experienced um the impacts of climate change on internally displaced people.

And from that day onwards, I decided that I would spend my time and energy driving impact within this space. So I went back to study. I went to the University of Cambridge and did a master's degree in sustainability leadership uh which really helped me build the foundations of uh the ventures that I've built. to Alliances for Global Sustainability, which I launched 10 years ago, just over 10 years ago, Aurora 50, Frontier 25, and the Climate Tribe.

I love this story. And when we first met, you told me this really inspiring story, and it's just so amazing to hear because you made a choice back during that trip and then for the rest of your your young life that you really wanted to make a difference, and you have such a beautiful country to start that work in. and then of course moving that more globally as well. And you've just had a really significant shift with your nonprofit moving to Frontier 25. Tell me about the significance of that.

So Frontier 25 was established as the UAE's independent climate change accelerators back in 2022. Um, we are continuing our our mission with renewed focus as a climate action advisory. Um, I'm really excited by the potential uh that the green economy space has. Actually, a recent report by the World Economic Forum stated that uh the the global green economy uh surpassed $5 trillion this year and is expected to grow and surpass um 7 trillion dollars by 2030. Uh so we are here with local knowledge and expertise uh working with our stakeholders across the ecosystem to capitalize on this potential and navigate um growth within our region

and I'm so impressed by this emirate and this country's focus on really preserving things like the mangroves. Can you talk to me about some of the projects you're working on? I know that are very close to your heart that we should keep an eye on. And I know the mangroves is one of them, but other kind of big projects um in the country right now.

I would say mangroves are really important because they deliver so many ecosystem services. Um so they sequester more carbon than terrestrial trees. They protect our our our coastline. Um, and so for me, I really enjoy going on walks uh in the mangroves and through the climate tribe. We've actually set up beehives with the community and we're teaching beehive beekeeping courses.

Um, so protecting uh those uh really small insects.

I need to come and do one of these courses with you. I've been saying I will for some time. So I'm going to to take you up on that in the new year. When you think about and you work a lot with boards. Your work is so important not just on climate but also to to achieve gender equality here and and globally but especially on boards.

And we'll talk about that in a minute. But when we think about investor mindsets, how do we shift that mindset to really focus on sustainability metrics rather than just financial returns? That's really interesting because traditionally we've focused on uh within the business world growth linked to profits and we have these shortterm quarterly reporting cycles. But what it doesn't take into effect is actually the people and the planet. And when you want to see impacts within those two spaces, it usually takes a longer term.

And so there was a recent study that was done by the World Bank on air quality and the health implications of um air pollution on human health. It actually costs us $6 trillion dollar which reduces our global GDP by 5%. So now if we look at the triple bottom line rather than just profit um we will be in a much better position uh to mitigate the financial risks of of climate change.

The triple bottom line. I really like that. I think something we need to cover and we do cover on CNBC, but it's a really important note. Um, when you think about women led businesses, they actually attract less than 2% of global VC funding, which is shocking. So, how can your work and kind of these sustainable finance initiatives really ensure inclusivity and support these under reppresented innovators in this space?

Firstly, thank you so much for bringing up this fact because actually you raising us helps raise awareness amongst a a wider audience and it is a staggering statistic that that causes a major issue for female founders uh and people working uh to to drive change. So on the on the I would say the diversity side uh McKenzie released a report that stated that if women participated equally uh within the economy they would generate by now and this was a 2023 report 28 trillion dollars to global GDP and so it's really important uh for us to make sure that when we make decisions and we all have unconscious biases to really step back and intentionally uh put those biases aside and ask ourselves does this person or this business uh are they able and are they well equipped uh to get that investment or not. It's so interesting and it is a staggering statistic and it's so good that that we're we're talking about it because we don't enough and when you and I first spoke I was really shocked. I cannot believe it's less than 2%. And you see such amazing women led businesses in this country.

I mean we just saw three women CEOs with multiply group coming together and you don't see that everywhere. So I think this country is doing such an excellent excellent job and really promoting and and ensuring that women are really pushed onto boards and and really leading as as you are working in that space so much. I think as well it's representation and so when we think of the the n the national federal council and the UAE which is our parliament 50% are women and so that is reflective of a society. Absolutely.

So it's it's so important to to have diversity. It creates resilience uh for companies.

It does. And when you think about and we've talked a little bit about boards in the region, but how can these boards really embed climate realities and gender balance into their decision- making and what role can you play in driving this corporate governance?

So, I've been really passionate about creating um solutions to drive um more women on boards. And a few years ago um we under Aurora 50 we created the pathway program uh which gave women the experience and tools um to sit on a board and and so since then we've seen an increasing number because our policy has changed in the UAE to in to include one woman on every listed board and that was work that we had advocate advocated for during the time. And now my focus is really on how do we bring climate onto boards. And so I am very fortunate and honored to be the chair of chapter zero UAE, which is an a local chapter of the uh um climate governance alliance uh that sort of educates uh and and creates that network for board members to learn more about the impacts of climate change. And we spoke about this, you're really a bridge creating that network because you said to me when we spoke a few weeks ago that some of these boards and some of these companies don't know who to to tap into and where to find that talent.

How are you working as a bridge? It's amazing what you told me and I'd love you to share that with the audience.

So when we design solutions, you really need to design it well from the very beginning. And so what we found with uh the women on boards uh we looked at all the challenges that women faced. Some were cultural, some were um just that those women didn't profile themselves well to be known as suitable candidates for those boards. And so we helped them on the journey through a one-year program. Uh, and many of them now sit on listed boards.

So, I'm really proud of that.

So impressive. I'm You're going to help me interview them on CNBC, I hope. Um, before we wrap up, I want to end this amazing session with a real call to action and a sort of final takeaway. The year 2024 marked the first time that global temperatures breached 1.5 degrees centigrade.

So when we think about that and we move into 2026, what action should we take and what should be our audience's final takeaway from you here today?

Well, we need to act with urgency. Um and I think being inspired by nature and specifically the mangroves that have a rich um biodiversity u there are rich biodiversity sort of ecosystem that supports one another for growth. So imagine if we took that approach and asked ourselves um how can businesses learn from nature. Um and in the business world we're all about competition and competition is healthy but business 2.0 is collaboration.

It's a wonderful final word for us to end on your highness. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you all to our audience, your excellencies, your distinguished guests. I hope to see you all again and enjoy the rest of your finance week.