London, Sustainable Real Assets Conference 2018

Speakers & Moderators

Sander Paul van Tongeren, Managing Director, GRESB

Sander Paul is Managing Director and co-founder of GRESB. Before joining GRESB, Sander Paul worked for 6 years as Head of Sustainability Real Estate and Infrastructure at APG Asset Management. Before APG he worked as a Portfolio Manager at CBRE Global Investors (formerly known as ING Real Estate) managing a pan-European office fund and two pan-European industrial funds.Sander Paul holds a Master’s degree in Business Economics as well as an Executive Master degree of Finance and Control from the University of Amsterdam and a Master of Studies in Real Estate from the Amsterdam School of Real Estate.

Peter Halliday, Head of Building Performance and Sustainability, Siemens Building Technologies

In January 2016, Peter Halliday became Head of Building Performance & Sustainability (BPS) at the international headquarters in Zug, Switzerland home of the Siemens Building Technologies Division. He is in charge of the BPS global business. Which aims to increase the competitiveness of customer business by delivering energy performance, operational efficiency and sustainability solutions for their buildings and infrastructures.
Over the past years, he has worked in nearly all areas of the building technology field, including engineering, project management, sales, business development and senior management. After 26 years experience in the business his focus is on growing through constant innovation, digital platforms and energy efficiency strategies, whilst turning buildings and infrastructure into a competitive advantage for organizations around the world.
Prior to his current position he was head of Solutions and Service Portfolio for Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Africa regions as well as Head of the Building Technologies Division for ASEAN at Siemens Private Limited.
He received his Certificate of Management at Deakin University, Australia.

Caroline Field

Caroline Field is a Principal with more than 20 years’ experience in engineering consultancy for the built environment. Caroline currently leads MMI’s Resilience Practice Area; assisting clients to develop a comprehensive approach to resilience for both cities and organizations.

Caroline is Chair for the new British Standard on City Resilience and Co-Chair for the American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD) Social Science, Policy, Economics, Education and Decision (SPEED) Committee. The SPEED committee is developing white papers on sustainability and resilience and non-physical resilience metrics for infrastructure projects.

Caroline is a Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Civil Engineers in the UK, a licensed professional engineer in California and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She is a Principal Member of the Register for Security Engineers and Specialists (RSES).

Jonathan Brasse

Jonathan Brasse is the senior editor for PEI Media’s Real Estate Group which comprises the group’s real estate publications, PERE and Real Estate Capital. Jonathan leads the group’s editorial team and is responsible for setting the agendas for the print and online editions of both publications as well as all associated publications.

He joined PEI in 2009 and has assumed various reporting and editing roles since, including responsibility for PERE’s coverage of the private real estate markets in Asia. He has a BA from the University of Kent and is an NCTJ qualified journalist.

Beth Ambrose, Director Upstream Sustainability Services, JLL

Beth leads the Sustainability Strategy & Implementation team within the 35-strong sustainability consulting team at JLL, providing strategic advice to a range of leading property companies, REITs, investors and corporate occupiers with European portfolios.
She also oversees the innovative Productive Buildings Advisory service which pulls together a cross-departmental team from JLL’s Workplace Strategy, Technology and Sustainability disciplines.
With her 15 years of experience in corporate sustainability and responsible investment she has significant understanding of best practices in the integration of sustainability factors into business and investment decision-making, and a long- term perspective on the evolution of sustainability reporting initiatives, including CDP, EPRA / Inrev, GRI, IR, DJSI / FTSE4Good, UN PRI, GRESB, UK CRC and UK mandatory carbon reporting. She has also developed significant expertise in the interface between wellbeing and the workplace, focusing her time over the past few years increasingly in this key area.
Previous positions include the Research Programme Manager for The Climate Group, and Director of Research for Europe at the SRI research house Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, now part of MSCI.

Peter van den Tol, Fund Manager Listed Real Estate EU, MN Services

Peter is Fund Manager European Listed Real Estate Securities at MN, one of the largest pension administrators and asset managers in the Netherlands. Peter’s core activities are Listed Real Estate Investing and continuously improving portfolio compositions, with a future proof perspective. ‘At MN we manage the portfolios of our institutional clients with the aim of long term value creation and with a focus on both people and the environment. By actively engaging with companies on ESG policies, ambitions and actions, we seek to provide both financial and social returns for our stakeholders.’

Michael Brooks, CEO, REALPAC

Michael Brooks is the CEO of REALPAC and is responsible for the Associations’ strategic planning, policy formulation, government relations, national and international liaison with associations in the USA, UK, Asia and Australia via membership in the Real Estate Equity Securitization Alliance and has been the catalyst to REALPAC’s growth over the past 15 years. Michael is a former Associate Professor at Ryerson University.

Michael has led the market and regulatory transformation in Canada, with effective representation for the REIT vehicle on cross-border and domestic tax issues and capital market and regulatory issues nationally and internationally. He has been the driving force behind the development of the REALPAC sustainability platform, including its Green Lease, Green Lease Tenant Guide, Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines and industry outreach with various national and international organizations. Michael is the former Treasurer, Executive Committee and Board member of the Canada Green Building Council.

Ashley Hegland, Sustainable Development Advisor, Swire Properties Limited

Ashley Hegland has been working with Swire Properties to develop its recently launched global sustainable development strategy – SD2030 – and its supporting governance system. His work with Swire Properties has been focused on building a strategy that both identifies innovation opportunities and mitigates risk across the company’s global assets.
Over the past 18 years in the Asia-Pacific region, Ashley has advised blue chip MNC’s, including HSBC, Wal-Mart, China Light and Power (CLP), and Shangri-La Hotel Group on sustainability strategy, ESG risk analysis, and stakeholder management.

Niamh McBreen, Investment Director, AMP Capital Investors

Niamh McBreen joined AMP Capital in July 2017 as an Investment Director in its Infrastructure Equity asset management team, based in London.

Niamh is responsible for managing assets across of AMP Capital’s European and Irish infrastructure funds. Before joining AMP Capital, Niamh was an Executive Director at UK Government Investments (UKGI), a company wholly owned by HM Treasury, where she was responsible for several portfolio assets including Network Rail, Highways England, NATS and Companies House. Prior to that, Niamh spent 15 years at rolling stock lessor Alpha Trains and its predecessor company where she held a variety of roles across business development, procurement and corporate finance, latterly as Group Commercial Director. Niamh started her career in Germany on the graduate trainee program in the power generation division of Swiss-Swedish industrial conglomerate ABB.

Chris Pyke, Research Officer, U.S. Green Building Council

Chris Pyke, Ph.D. is the Research Officer for the U.S. Green Building Council and Green Business Certification, Inc. He leads applied research and innovation partnerships to benefit people and the environment. Dr. Pyke has experience in the private sector, nonprofits, and government, including service as the Chief Strategy Officer for Aclima, Inc. the Chief Operating Officer for GRESB, B.V., and a physical scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is a principal investigator for the Green Health Partnership, a 5-year research initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has served in a number of advisory roles, including representing the United States as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. Dr. Pyke is on the faculties of urban planning programs at Georgetown University and The George Washington University. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.S. from the College of William and Mary.

Roxana Isaiu, Director, Real Estate, GRESB

Roxana Isaiu is Director Real Estate for GRESB. Roxana holds an Msc in Corporate Finance and is responsible for the development and execution of the ESG data benchmarking methodology for the real estate sector.
Since joining the company in 2012, Roxana has been working with institutional investors, real estate companies and industry groups to help develop reliable and consistent data collection and analysis tools. In her position, Roxana focuses on the promotion of transparency in the real estate sector through systematic reporting on ESG indicators of performance. She helps shape data quality processes and manages a team to support stakeholder engagement across industry bodies.
GRESB is an investor-driven organization that is transforming the way we assess the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of real assets globally, including real estate portfolios and infrastructure assets. More than 250 members, of which about 60 are pension funds and their fiduciaries, use the GRESB data in their investment management and engagement process, with a clear goal to optimize the risk/return profile of their investments.

Charlotte Breen, Group Sustainability Manager, Grosvenor Group

Charlotte is a change management agent for the integration of sustainable practices across the myriad of business functions for Grosvenor’s international property group and rural estates. As the Group Sustainability Manager, and a Chartered Environmentalist, her role encompasses: influencing strategy, measuring progress, improving external reporting and managing research projects.
Charlotte’s particular interest is finding ways businesses can enhance long-term profit through responding to global challenges, from climate change and resource scarcity to rising inequality. Charlotte co-authored a research paper on ‘Resilient Cities’ ranking 50 global cities by environmental and social resilience published in 2014.
Charlotte is a Young Leader member of the Urban Land Institute and has been a guest lecturer at Henley Business School, University of Reading for five consecutive years. Charlotte graduated from Cambridge University, where she read Land Economy, a multidisciplinary degree combining economics, law and finance, applied in particular to the built environment.