The transition from multi-crisis towards Sustainability
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, and you can’t improve it!
Professor Phoebe Koundouri
Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) and Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Director ATHENA Information Technologies RC
Chair UN SDSN Global Climate Hub and European Hub, Chair AE4RIA
Member World Academy of Art & Science, European Academy of Science, European Academy of Science Technology

President European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
President World Council of Environmental and Resource Economists

Interdisciplinary Thematic Priorities

SDGs – ESG
measurement

Sustainable PathwaysClimate Neutrality

Sustainable Finance& Resilience

Sustainable Pathways
for Seas and Oceans

Sustainable Pathways
Land Use &WEFB Nexus

Innovation Acceleration
Education
Upskilling/ReskillingSummary of the Policy Framework for the transition to sustainability
2015

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023
New Law to Reduce
Methane Emissions
Fit-for-55 Policy
updates

Climate Delegated Act& Energy Prices
RePowerEU
Independence Russian Fossil
Fuels
Supply Chain SecurityInterconnectivity
Invest Renewables

Digital Policies

Industrial Policy

European Green
Deal updates

Measuring Sustainability
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, and you can’t improve it!

Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Bermont Diaz, L., Kloke-Lesch, A., Koundouri, P., Riccaboni, A. (2022).
Achieving the SDGs: Europe’s Compass in a Multipolar World. Europe Sustainable Development Report 2022. SDSN and SDSN
Europe. France: Paris.

Downscale at Subnational -NUTS2 Level – Greece
Koundouri et al., SDSN SDR Greece, 2022

In collaboration withnational governments
and respective SDSN
National Hubs (2000
institutions globally)
we co-design nationaland sub-national
pathways for thetransition to a climate
neutral and resilientworld.

Optimal DynamicMixture of- Technologies- Policies- Fiscal & Financial
Instruments- Socio-Economic
Narratives

UN SDSN Global Climate Hub
https://unsdsn.globalclimatehub.org

Collaborations

Mission: Collect, Aggregate, Connect and Visualize
Data relative to the objectives of the GCH
Supporting Projects

12HOW? The power of an operational AI-Driven data infrastructure

1. Combining
data from theglobal researchand policy
ecosystem > 10K
sources
3. A community to develop
indicators and validate data

2. A big AI-driven data infrastructure
to extract information (meaning)
SDSN Global Climate Hub Science & Technology
Observatory

Mission
Climate model simulations, analyses, and methods combining multiple lines of evidence focused on
improving understanding of human influence on a wider range of climate variables, including weather
and climate extremes – IPCC reports
Study of climate fluctuations in any period
Study of the observations related to the upper layers of the atmosphere
Collation and processing of observations related to air pollution
Supporting projects

Collaborations

Mission

Model: Balmorel Energy-System model

Climate and Energy Systems modelling will use system dynamics andstochastic modelling techniques to develop decarbonization pathways ofthe energy system at the national and regional levels.
Energy supply: mapping power generation plants along with theirassociated fuel, including coal, oil, gas, renewables, bioenergy, nuclear
and new zero carbon.
Energy demand by economic sector (transport, households, buildingsand industry) recorded along with their associated greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions.
Climate policy, such as carbon pricing, Fit for 55, etc calculate their effecton GHG emissions and temperature
Simulation of the scenarios providing detailed values for all relevant
variables, along with the resulting temperature increase.

Supporting Projects

Collaborations

Integrated energy
system modellingin Balmorel

European decarbonization
pathways

Regional decarbonization
pathways

National decarbonization
pathways15

Model renewable fuels and Power-to-X(renewable to electricity) production
European scale

Energy sources and hydrogen infrastructure, spatialdistribution at European level by 2050

North European countries• Large potentials for offshore wind
• District heating• Cheap onshore wind
• Biomass availability
Central and south European countries• Cheap solar PV• Hydrogen industryHydrogen infrastructure in the future?
Hydrogen import from other regions?

TO BE LAUNCHED AT COP28: EU-27, UK, THE BALKANS
13 December 2022

DTU Management

Energy systems modelling

16

Supporting Projects

Land Use Sustainable Pathway: In Need of an IPFSS Report!
> 1 billion Combination of Scenarios  Pathways

Current Trends

National Commitments



Global Targets

Shifting diets, increasing crop and livestock productivity, andlimiting agricultural land expansion, are the strongest
drivers of positive change in global biodiversity.

Implementing these reforms in multiple countries would help
put us on track to achieve global biodiversity, food security
and climate mitigation goals by 2050.

Decline in GHG Emissions by 2050 - GREECE

Mission: Estimate Global economic burden of climate change indicator
Climate change will have a huge impact on population health outcomes wrt
morbidity, mortality, and disability for physical and mental conditions.
Identify climate change risk factors for physical and mental conditions of interest (basedon the WHO Environmental Burden of Disease Series)

Estimate the disease burden resulting from a variety of climate change risk factors byregion - Attribute economic cost

Supporting Projects

Mission: To meet the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality objective, requires
supporting the mass deployment of sustainable innovations – technology,
finance, socio-economic, governance. Incremental innovation, but also
disruptive or breakthrough technologies will be needed to accelerate thetransition to a green economy and society.
Bring together partners from the business sector, academia, and the public and non-profit
sectors to create networks of expertise, through which innovative solutions can be developed,
brought to market and scaled-up for impact.

Collaborations

TechnologicalInnovation
MENAMaritime
ClimAccelerat
orB

PORTS &SHIPPING

30 start-ups
New CallBootcamps Workshops
Peer-to-Peer. Mentoring
Funding. Demo Days
Demonstration. Networking

Machine Learning Textual Analysis
Does the EGD support the implementation of the SDGs?

Which of the 6 Sustainable Development
Transformations are supported by the EGD?

Key Sectors for Green Recovery

Are the European Recovery and Resilient Plans
SDGs-compatible?

Energy Sector - shift from fuels-based to mineralsbased energy production, storage, anddistribution system•Agriculture and Food Sector - directly linked tothe environment and the ecosystems
Sustainable Finance: Valuing Natural and Cultural Capital

Housing and Urbanization - Urbanization’s growth
should be managed sustainably
Health Sector - invest COVID-19 recovery
packages in strengthening health systems andincrease regulation on risk-sources
R&D for Geo-engineering - Removing CO2 fromthe atmosphere, blocking the sun, etc.

Fiscal Innovation: What are the distributional effects of Key EU climate policies?

Sustainable Private Sector

Deep Neural Networks ML Approach:
Cross-Mapping EGD Policies to the 6 Transformations that operationalize the SDGs
Transformations mostinfluenced by EGD
Transformation 4
Sustainable Food,Land, Water, andOceans
Transformation 3
EnergyDecarbonization andSustainable Industry

SDGs are a more holistic
framework than EGD, weneed joint implementation
SDGs-EGDIntegrating Natural Capital in the Sustainable Finance Framework

Experiments basedon Virtual Reality

O p e n - A c c e s s , A I - b a s e d P L AT F O R M f o r
E c o s y s t e m a n d C u l t u r a l S e r v i c e s Va l u a t i o n

The SDG Stimulus puts forward
three areas for immediate action:
The global economy is facing multiple shocks that are threatening to further reverse progress on theSDGs: COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, high inflation and weak economic growth, tightening
monetary and financial conditions, and unsustainable debt burdens, escalating climate emergency
The impact of these shocks on developing countries is aggravated by an unfair global financial systemthat is short-term oriented and crisis-prone, and that further exacerbates inequalities.

UN SDGs Stimulus for Agenda 2030Reform of the Global Financial Architecture, The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
1 Tackle the high cost of debt and rising risks of debt distress, by converting short-term high interest borrowing
into long-term (more than 30 year) debt at lower interest rates.
2 Massively scale up affordable long-term financing for development, especially through public developmentbanks (PDBs), multilateral development banks (MDBs), and by aligning all financing flows with the SDGs.

FISCAL INNOVATION
Distributional effects of key EU climate
policies until 2050: Identifying measures toMitigate Regressive Effects

Detailed macroeconomic modelling based on thestandard E3ME model baseline with anassessment of the existing policy best practices
to explore the patterns of inequality in Europe(EU27 and the UK).

SDSN, EGD SWG report, 2022

Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Mapping ESG to SDG Goals and Targets• ESG KPIs are mapped to SDGs Indexes.
• Experts Classification & Machine/Deep learning
approaches to map ESG KPIs to the 232 Indicatorsof 17 SDGs.
• Targets are set for SDG Indicators following thecommon UN SDSN methodology.

SDG Footprint Dashboard By Company/ Unit

• Calculate Scores at any Level (Transformations/ ESGs / SDGs).
• Calculate the Company’s SDG Footprint at a company/Unit/Product level.
• Calculate SDG Trends/ Pathways to 2030/2050.

SDG and ESG
consistent AssetPricing

Regional and Global Asset Pricing Models• 11.400+ Companies In
International Markets (99% Of
Global Market Capitalization).
Asia Pacific
4050+

North
America
4050+

Europe2550+

Latin
America380+

Africa andMiddle
East450+• > 600 ESG KPIs (reported byThompsons Rauters)
AIM: Calculate ESG/SDG holistic
performance indicator percompany
USING: Arbitrage Asset PricingTheory extend Fama & French
to create ESG/SDG mimicking
portofolios

AE4RIA’s SDG Pricing Factors

Value of 1 dollar invested in an SDG-specific factor-miking
portfolios, hedging against SDG related risk

Models can provide the evidence, but people must
make the decisions…
Our transformative and participatory approaches seek
to bridge the gap between science, policy and society,by supporting key actors to utilize model outputs tomake sustainable decisions.
Supporting Projects
Methodologies••••••

Transformative Living Labs
System Innovation and Transition Management
Innovation Pathways
Foresight methods such as Backcasting
key actions and policy recommendations
Living Lab Modeler Tool

Mission
To support the green and digital transition by educating and training people,
building skills ecosystems, which will also be aligned with national, regional, local
and sectoral green strategies. The educational programs will be delivered under six
themes corresponding to the Six SDG Transformations namely:

Supporting Projects

Explore avenues of collaboration in the run-up
to COP 28, towards developing thesocio-economic narrative towards
climate neutrality.