Greenwashing, where companies make themselves appear more environmentally friendly than they really are, has become a multi-headed hydra.
Greenwashing strategies are becoming increasingly sophisticated, ranging from emphasising a particular green activity, without betraying that the rest of the company’s business is environmentally damaging, to using regulatory loopholes to avoid punishment.
Whilst this sounds like criminal behaviour, some companies are innocently unaware that their activity can be classed as greenwashing and can face unexpected legal challenges.
This seminar seeks to look into these topics and the steps that companies can take to avoid unintentional greenwashing.
Venue: Freeths, 1 Vine St, London W1J 0AH
Chair
Alex Dunn, Research Manager, Cromwell Property Group
Panellists
Jessica Pilz, Global Head of ESG, Fiera Real Estate
Dr Sophie Taysom, Founder, Keyah Consulting
Katie Whipp, Head of Deepki UK and Ireland
Iona Silverman, Partner, Freeths
Alex Dunn, Research Manager, Cromwell Property Group
Alex began working in the property industry in 2009 as an Analyst for MSCI, working closely with institutional investors. In 2015 he joined Cushman & Wakefield where he became Head of UK Business Space Research and then in 2017 joined Gerald Eve as Head of London Office Research.
Alex joined Cromwell Property Group in 2020 and is a Manager within the Research & Investment Strategy team, analysing markets and thematic megatrends across all real estate sectors in Europe. At Cromwell Alex specialises on the environmental impact of the build environment and leads the research on the company’s timber buildings fund.
Jessica Pilz, Global Head of ESG, Fiera Real Estate
Jessica joined Fiera Real Estate in 2020 and is responsible for the firm’s ESG strategies and initiatives across its investments, developments and operations. Prior to Fiera Real Estate, Jessica worked in the Commercial Real Estate Credit Team at RBS (now NatWest) where she was responsible for environmental and sustainability risk processes. Previously, Jessica was at MSCI Real Estate, where she led their global sustainability benchmarking initiatives, and at the Public Investment Corporation Real Estate Asset Managers (PICREAM) in South Africa, where she managed a portfolio or retail assets in underserviced townships. Jessica currently sits on AREF’s ESG and Impact Investment Committee.
Iona Silverman, Partner, Freeths
Iona is a Partner in Freeths’ IP & Media team. She specialises in drafting complex intellectual property agreements, including trade mark licences, brand ambassador agreements and influencer agreements. Iona advises on all aspects of marketing and advertising law, including claims made online, in print and on pack and on all areas of ASA regulation.
Iona is also a member of Freeths’ Climate Change Litigation group, and frequently gives training on managing risk around sustainable and environmental claims, including reviewing substantiating data for those claims. She has also authored articles and delivered webinars addressing the practical considerations of environmental claims that all brands should be aware of.
Dr Sophie Taysom, Founder, Keyah Consulting
Sophie is Founder of Keyah Consulting, working across the built environment to develop approaches to ESG. She is a speaker on national and international platforms. Sophie’s career spans central government, business and academia. She brings this range of expertise to her roles as a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Healthcare Sector Executive, as a Trustee for Groundwork London, and as a NED with Trustek. She founded the ESG in real estate group on LinkedIn which now has over 2,000 members. She uses her background to set businesses’ ESG strategy apart from the competition.
Katie Whipp, Head of Deepki UK and Ireland
Katie's career has spanned the global real estate space for 14 years, most recently at CBRE and Cluttons, where she led their pioneering CRM programmes and digital transformation initiatives, working with some of the largest landlords and investors in the market. In early 2021, Katie moved from CBRE to leading ESG PropTech company Deepki, where she established their UK and Ireland business. She took the UK arm from ground zero to being deployed in more than 4,000 assets, seeing the business achieve year on year outperformance, alongside a variety of global business expansion responsibilities.
Katie's combined passion for technology, ESG and real estate, saw her join Trustek's leadership team in April 2023, making her an excellent addition to their business, client base and in turn, their clients’ customers. Katie seeks to ensure that not only are the right technology investments being made (aka solving the real problem) for real estate, but those who invest are equipped to realise the potential for not only themselves, but their full stakeholder ecosystem, resulting in practical, long-lasting solutions.
In addition to her work at Trustek, Katie remains engaged across various ESG and Tech forums and continues to be a huge advocate for levelling the playing field when it comes to DEI across Proptech and the wider real estate space.
This event is in collaboration with RE Women
Thank you to Freeths for hosting this event
