Diane Brady here, filling in for Peter Vanham.
I’m excited to be heading tonight to Hong Kong, where I started my career as a reporter. Since COP28 concluded, it’s clear that we have a long way to go in combating the global climate challenge. On Monday, I will attend the inaugural One Earth Summit, which will focus on investing in innovations for a sustainable future.
It’s especially powerful to be having these discussions in Asia, where growth and innovation will be critical in determining to what extent we can reduce carbon emissions on a path to net zero.
We’ll hear from plenty of people who have been on the front lines, including Prince Maximilian von und zu Liechtenstein, TPG Capital’s Jim Coulter, Robin Zeng of Chinese battery giant CATL, Peter Lee Ka-kit of Henderson Land, Chavalit Frederick Tsao of IMC Pan Asia Alliance Group, and Amy Lo of UBS.
But I think it’s always good to start with the person who has the vision and drive to get these ambitious initiatives off the ground. That would be Poman Lo. She wears many hats, including being vice chair of Regal Hotels and Century City, founding partner of sustainable technology fund AlphaTrio, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and founder of the Institute of Sustainability and Technology.
Lo founded the One Earth Summit as a partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government to mobilize capital, spur innovation, and, as she puts it, “foster international partnerships and technology exchange across the East and West.”
I look forward to hearing more. If you’ll be at the summit too, I hope we can connect there.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
ON OUR RADAR
Empowering disabled workers—joyfully (CBS News)
Seven years ago, Yann Bucaille-Lanrezac opened a restaurant in France to employ neurodivergent employees. After expanding to 20 cafés across France, Belgium, and Portugal, the founder and CEO opened his first U.S. location in midtown Manhattan yesterday to mark World Down Syndrome Day.
The name captures his philosophy: Café Joyeux. “The great surprise for people is how our workers bring joy to everybody—to themselves, the staff, the customers,” says Bucaille-Lanrezac. “Inclusion is a joyful experience.”
Inclusion is also, of course, a business imperative. The U.S. alone is home to a neurodivergent population that some put as high as 20% of the whole, including over 200,000 with Down Syndrome. Euan Blair, CEO of the tech upskilling startup Multiverse, told me earlier this week that 20% of those who go through its professional apprenticeship programs have special learning needs. The key, he said, is to "identify hidden talent within the workforce, regardless of how it presents, and invest money in retraining them."
SEC pauses climate-disclosure rules amid political pressure (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily halted implementation of new climate-related risk disclosures by companies. Republicans had fought against the rules, and climate advocates have spent years fighting for them. The SEC had already dropped one controversial provision, and now the rules are on pause—for the moment. As regular readers of Impact Report know, we've been watching this closely and will continue to do so.
