Investing in the Future: How Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are Building the Next Generation of Climate-Resilient Real Assets

Melia is a Consultant in Paia from CBRE with a background in Life Sciences, specialisation in Environmental Biology and minor in aquatic ecology. Melia aspires to drive the environmental impacts to Paia's work as a sustainability agency. She hopes to bring forth new perspectives through her experiences with research projects in microplastic studies and biodiversity surveys.

Melia graduated from the Bachelor of Science with an Honor's in Life Sciences at National University of Singapore in July 2022. Prior to joining Paia as a consultant, Melia worked with Worldwide Fund for Nature Singapore (WWF) as a corporate partnerships intern, focused on facilitating and engaging corporates who were interested in finding out more about impact and dependencies on nature and biodiversity.

Since joining the company in early 2023, Melia has engaged in the various service lines in Paia, with a focus on the following:

• Sustainability strategy and disclosure according to international standards (i.e. GRI 2021 Standards, SASB Sector Standards, etc)
• Climate risks and opportunities assessment & disclosure (i.e. TCFD)
• ESG Ratings (i.e. GRESB submissions)
• ESG data management (including analysis and quality control)
• GHG accounting and inventory consolidation
• Materiality assessment and stakeholder engagement
• ESG policy drafting
• Customised training sessions for clients

Her clients operate in a range of industries, from real estate, data centers, urban development to maritime. Leveraging a broad and diverse client base, Melia has cultivated insights into both peer and industry landscapes, enhancing her contributions at Paia and delivering added value to her clients. She is experienced with various reporting standards and keeps abreast of the regulatory reporting landscape to ensure her clients are aligning to reporting best practices.

Dan Fairweather leads the Food Systems and Biodiversity within the Howden Climate Risk and Resilience Team. Dan has over 20 years’ experience in dealing with agricultural risks, mainly focussed on the aquaculture and livestock sectors. Starting out as a specialist Lloyd’s broker, Dan then went on to be the senior aquaculture underwriter at RSA for 7 years before returning to broking, heading up the Livestock and Aquaculture Divisions at WTW and then Gallagher Speciality.

Latterly Dan has explored the use of parametric insurance and novel insurance products to incentivise environmental stewardship and support small-scale farmers and climate exposed communities. This work has led to a number of work streams with global environmental NGO’s to assess the role of finance and risk in the world of conservation.

Dan is increasingly looking at the regulation emerging around Nature and Biodiversity and exploring what can be done in the field of Biodiversity Credits and Biodiversity Net Gain and how risk management and insurance can support this. This work looks to learn from, and build on, the carbon credit market initiatives and emerging regulation.

Recent work has been looking at regional risk pools covering climate, nature and agricultural risks, particularly in Asia, and structures to close the protection gap, enabling access to insurance and finance for small-scale farmers and micro-enterprises. Other work has looked at how equitable supply chains can provide enhanced resilience and adaptability in the food sector, and how nature can be recognised as a crucial component in agricultural risk management.

A sustainability practitioner for over two decades, Esther published the first sustainability report in Singapore in 2008 and issued the first green bond by a Singapore company in 2017. Conferred the 2018 SDG Pioneer for Green Infrastructure and A Low Carbon Economy by the UN Global Compact, and named amongst 25 Trailblazing Women against Climate Change by Reuters in 2023 as well as the inaugural TIME100 Climate Leaders in Business 2023 list, Esther sits on the boards or advisory platforms of international organizations including:

• World Economic Forum Nature-Positive Cities Global Commission
• World Green Building Council Corporate Advisory Board Chairperson
• Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
• UN PRI Real Estate Advisory Committee
• UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network Executive Council
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Supervisory Board
• Urban Land Institute (ULI) Randall Lewis Center Advisory Board for Sustainability in Real Estate and ULI Asia Pacific Net Zero Council
• Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA) Board of Directors and Chair of ESG Committee
• GRESB Foundation Board

She founded Women4Green and Youth4Climate networks to empower women and youths to champion climate action and sustainable development.

Ronita is a Sustainability consultant, helping clients from all industries with their sustainability strategy, reporting in line with regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations, decarbonisation programmes and upskilling their people. Ronita conducts training on a variety of topics including Sustainable Finance and Carbon Management topics. Prior to this, she worked as an audit risk and compliance consultant for global Financial Services firms, having started her career as a Chartered Accountant, working in the UK, Europe and Singapore.

Charmaine develops and implements comprehensive ESG strategies for a diverse portfolio of clients, including those in real estate, technology, and healthcare. Her core expertise involves guiding companies through the complex sustainability landscape, from conducting materiality assessments and climate risk analysis to ensuring robust reporting aligned with global standards like GRI, SASB, IFRS S1 and S2. She has extensive technical experience, including developing GHG inventories and data analytics.

This strategic work is informed and enhanced by her academic background in Environmental Biology. This foundation provides a scientifically-grounded approach, allowing her to offer a unique perspective on integrating emerging topics like biodiversity and nature-related financial disclosures (TNFD) into wider corporate frameworks. Charmaine aims to help organisations practically embed nature-positive actions within their existing climate goals, risk management processes, and overall ESG reporting strategy, ensuring a coherent and impactful approach to sustainability.