Countdown to RIAA conference is on

The largest gathering of sustainable investment professionals in the Southern Hemisphere is scheduled for next month - and the event organiser, the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA), has pulled industry heavyweights to the stage.

This year, the annual RIAA conference will be held on May 28-29 at the Pyrmont Theatre at ICC Sydney, drawing hundreds of delegates from around the country. Past speakers and attendees have included leading super funds, global fund managers, sustainability researchers and responsible advisers.

Estelle Parker, RIAA co-chief executive, said the conference will provide a timely platform for the industry to discuss possible reforms post-election.

Parker said: "We've got our conference less than four weeks after the Australian election, so we will be covering this - will the government remain committed to supporting sustainable finance and sustainable growth, or will PRI, the private sector and investors need to take the lead?"

Early this month RIAA released a policy platform that goes through what its members would love to see the next government take on.

"It's things like capitalising on Australia's opportunity to become a sustainability leader by really leaning into some of those global initiatives to push decarbonisation and sustainable finance," she said.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to hear from the man who came up with the term 'ESG', Paul Clements-Hunt, chief executive of Blended Capital Group.

"It's really exciting to see that at a time when 'ESG' as an acronym is under the spotlight, we've actually got the person who coined the acronym, coming out in person ... so it's going to be a really interesting deep dive into the future outlook for responsible investment," Parker said.

One of the conference drawcards for investment professionals is the session on impact investing across asset classes, featuring panelist Kristina Hermanson, head of APAC and Africa at Nuveen Natural Capital.

With nature and biodiversity touted as the gargantuan sustainability issue alongside climate change, Hermanson will be sharing her insights as part of the largest global farmland asset manager with a significant stake in Australian farmland.

Commenting on the market focus on sweeping tariff changes, Hermanson said that natural capital investments, by their very nature, require a long-term perspective that goes beyond presidential elections and terms. "These investments have demonstrated robust risk-adjusted returns through economic cycles," she said.

"Both farmland and timberland are also known to have strong inflation hedging characteristics, important in global tariff environments."

From geopolitical risks from the new tariffs regime to greenwashing and a just transition, the two-day conference is jam-packed with sessions relevant to all corners of the sustainability sector, said Parker.

FS Sustainability is a media partner of the 2025 RIAA Conference on May 28-29 at the ICC Sydney. More details to register can be found here or on the RIAA website.