During this webinar we will hear how the European Union wants to guide the transition towards climate-neutrality while safeguarding social inclusion, and which financial mechanisms will encourage this.
The European Green Deal is the Union’s new growth strategy for the next decade, aiming to create new businesses and jobs, and to trigger more investment. It is designed to build a European market which will allow Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. It is fundamental that reaching this goal will not exclude anyone, guaranteeing a socially fair and just transition for all. During this webinar we will hear how the European Union wants to guide the transition towards climate-neutrality while safeguarding social inclusion, and which financial mechanisms will encourage this. Moreover, we will uncover which role the investors for impact can play in the Just Transition. Finally, we will learn why and how the European Green Deal, which puts both people and planet at its core, should also be the European long-term answer to the ongoing Corona crisis.
Recording and slides
Download the slides here
Agenda
- 15:00-15:05 Introduction - by Bianca Polidoro, Policy Manager, EVPA
- 15:05-15:15 Just Transitions Mechanism and social Inclusion - by Risto Raivio, Senior Expert, DG EMPL, European Commission
- 15:15-15:25 Social impact financing in the context of Green Deal - by Ruiz Martín Paula, Social Impact Manager, European Investment Fund
- 15:25-15:40 Q&A with speakers
- 15:40-15:50 EBRD and the Green Economy Transition - by Isabel Blanco, Lead Economist, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
- 15:50-16:05 Social inclusion within the energy space: the role of the practitioners - by Beau-Anne Chilla, Stichting Doen & Vincent Ruijter, CEO iwell
- 16:05-16:20 Q&A with speakers
- 16:20-16:30 Conclusion - by Cătălina Papari, Policy Associate, EVPA
Beau-Anne Chilla
Beau-Anne Chilla works as Impact Investment Manager for DOEN Participaties, the investment arm of the DOEN Foundation.
She works on both the Renewable Energy and Sustainable Food Systems programs within DOEN. DOEN Participaties invests in early-stage impact first and innovative start-ups and is funded by the Dutch Charity Lotteries.
Isabel Blanco
Isabel Blanco is an environmental economist with over 20 years' of experience in sustainable energy and climate change, mainly dealing with policy dialogue and regulatory analysis. At the EBRD, she manages the green economy team within the Economics, Policy and Governance group, engaged in the design and assessment of projects and policy dialogue in the environmental space.
Isabel has led the design of a dedicated methodology to assess the merits of green projects funded by the EBRD, and to define the green quality - one of the transition objectives of the Bank. She also leads the Just Transition Initiative and the group in charge of conducting economic assessment to projects with high carbon emissions. Other areas of work include green recovery and national decarbonisation plans and renewable energy policies.
Prior to joining the Bank, she managed the department of regulation at a large international renewable energy company and taught macroeconomics and development. She holds a PhD in environmental economics.
Paula Ruiz
Paula Ruiz has 10 years of experience in the financial and sustainable development fields, working for the private sector and international organizations. She currently works at the EIF as a mandate officer of Social Impact Programmes developing and implementing EU financial instruments.
Additionally, she is involved in EIF's policy, ESG and climate-related cross-cutting projects. Previously, working for Forética, the Spanish partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), she supported companies as well as public administrations for integrating and enhancing their sustainability practices. Before, she worked for a multinational advisory services company for the banking and insurance industries.
Risto Raivio
Risto Raivio is a senior expert in European Commission's Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. He works in the ESF coordination unit and is in charge of ESF measures promoting social innovation.
The past 5 years Mr. Raivio worked in the same DG on social entrepreneurship policy. He has also worked in the European Commission's DG Education and Culture, in the Committee of the Regions of the EU and at the University of Tampere in Finland.
Vincent Ruijter
Vincent works as CEO at iwell on building tomorrow's energy supply today. With our team and smart batteries we are already taking steps towards a better world today for everyone, therefore we not only make it greener, smarter but also cheaper so everyone can have clean and affordable energy.
Bianca Polidoro
Catalina Papari
Cătălina Papari joined our Policy department as a Policy and EU Partnerships Associate in April 2020. She was a trainee at the European Commission in DG Regio, starting to specialise in inter-institutional European relations and audit, mainly focusing on the simplification of the Cohesion Policy and ERDF.
Previously, she followed a MSc in Economic Policy at the faculty of Law, Governance and Economics from Utrecht University and a BSc in International Business and Economics from Bucharest University of Economic Studies. She was always passionate about institutional economics and the evolution of public-private dynamics regarding socio-economic policies. During her studies she conducted research on education policies, impact evaluation, and projects scale-up mainly in Central and Eastern European countries with the final goal of creating more policy evidence. In the long-run she strives to contribute with her knowledge to a more efficient global economy with better social outcomes and reduced poverty gaps.