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GRI Topic Climate ChangeStandard(s) projectTechnical committee member biographies
May 2023© GRI 2022

Contents
GRI Topic Climate Change Standard(s) project ................................................................. 1
Jesica Andrews ................................................................................................................................. 3
Pankaj Bhatia ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Dr. Matthew Brander ......................................................................................................................... 4
Svend Brun Hansen .......................................................................................................................... 5
Jimmy Jia ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Lindsey LaGesse ............................................................................................................................... 6
Timothy Letts ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Azahara Merino Martos ..................................................................................................................... 7
Zahra Omar ........................................................................................................................................ 8
Guo Peiyuan ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Caroline Rees ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Christoph Töpfer ............................................................................................................................. 10
Michel Washer ................................................................................................................................. 10

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Technical committee
In accordance with due process, the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) has selected thefollowing members to participate in the technical committee that will be responsible for reviewing the
Climate Change disclosures in the GRI Standards. The members represent diverse, multi-stakeholder
backgrounds and bring an excellent combination of relevant knowledge and experience in Climate
Change.

Jesica Andrews
Investment Lead at the United Nations Environment
Programme Finance Initiative, Switzerland
Constituency: Civil Society/ Investment institution(Non-Governmental Organization)
Jes Andrews is Investment Lead at the United Nations
Environment Programme Finance Initiative, where sheleads the Investment Leadership Programme andfocuses on portfolio target-setting with investors in the
UN-Convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. She isalso a member of the Expert Advisory Group for Science
Based Targets Initiative and UNFCCC’s Race to Zero
Campaign. Prior to working with UNEP FI, she worked on
climate change projects across with multiple UNagencies, governments and private firms across some 35
countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. She’s theauthor of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group
Paper: High Level Recommendations for Credible Net
Zero Commitments and has several times been served
as an invite reviewer of the UNEP Emission Gap Reports.
Simply put, Jes supports financial institutions inunderstanding climate risk, developing science-based
methodologies and aligning with the UNFCCC Paris
Agreement. She graduated summa cum laude from the
University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts in
Political Science and Economics and holds a Master ofFinance from the University of Cambridge, Judge
Business School.

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Pankaj Bhatia
Global Director of the GHG Protocol Initiative(GHGP) at the World Resources Institute, UnitedStatesConstituency: Mediation Institution
Pankaj Bhatia is the Global Director of GHG Protocol,
convening its multi-stakeholders processes and leading
its teams in the development and implementation ofseveral key standards and tools in the last fifteen years.
Pankaj is a leading expert on GHG Protocol’s key
standards including Corporate, Scope 3, Mitigation
Action, and GPC (City Accounting). He launched andmanaged the three-year global process that involved
more than 2,300 stakeholders to develop the GHG
Protocol Scope 3 and Product Standards released in
2011. Further, he continued to lead GHG Protocol teams
to develop new global standards including Scope 2,
Mitigation Goals, Policies and Actions, GPC (Cities);
supported global initiatives including CDP, SBTi, ISO,GRI to adopt GHGP standards; and led planning andimplementation of national GHG programs in key major
economies including China, India, and Brazil. Currently,
he is a member of the GHGP team developing new global
guidance for the Land Sector. From 1998 to 2000, he
was Vice President of Tata Energy & Resources Institute,a not-for-profit research organization based in Arlington,
Virginia. From 1993 to 1998 he was an Associate at
TERI, New Delhi working on the implementation of theMontreal Protocol in India. He holds a Master's inprocess engineering from the Indian Institute ofTechnology, Delhi, and a Bachelor's in chemicalengineering from the Indian Institute of Technology,
Varanasi, India.

Dr. Matthew Brander
Senior Lecturer in Carbon Accounting at the
University of Edinburgh’s Business School, UK
Constituency: Mediating Institution (Academic)
Matthew is a Senior Lecturer in Carbon Accounting at the
University of Edinburgh’s Business School. His current
research focuses on the development of methods forcorporate, product (life cycle assessment), project andpolicy-level greenhouse gas accounting.
He hasparticular interest in bioenergy, offsetting, electricity
accounting, greenhouse gas removal, and the alignmentof financial flows with the Paris Agreement. He hasserved as a member of several technical working groups
for the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and the International
Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), and is on thepeer review panel for BEIS/Defra’s emission factors

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publication for company reporting, and the Advisory
Board for the Woodland Carbon Code. He also chairs the
Climate Advisory Group for abrdn’s Multi-Asset Climate
Solutions Fund. Prior to his current position Matthew
worked for over seven years in carbon management andgreenhouse gas assessment at the Edinburgh Centre for
Carbon Management, and at Ecometrica. For more
information:https://www.businessschool.ed.ac.uk/staff/matthew-brander

Svend Brun Hansen
Climate and Environmental Manager, Ørsted,
Denmark
Constituency: Business Enterprise
Svend Hansen is a Climate and Environmental Manager
in Ørsted. Since 2016, Svend has been advising theexecutive management on the direction of Ørsted’s
climatestrategy,
tosupportthecompany’stransformation from a European-based fossil utility to a
global renewable energy company. He has led Ørsted tobe the first energy major to set a science-based target in2017 and to become the first energy company with ascience-based net-zero target in 2021. Svend is a leadadvisor on climate strategy across all technologies inØrsted’s portfolio, including offshore wind, power-to-x,
supply chain decarbonization, and nature-based
solutions.
Svend brings extensive experience with corporate
reporting on climate change. He has led the work toestablish Ørsted’s scope 3 reporting in collaboration with
the Finance team, together with whom he continues toensure alignment of the company’s climate accounting
with international best-practice standards. He leads thecompany’s CDP climate reporting, including the efforts tomake Ørsted a global climate leader with an A-score forfour consecutive years.
Svend has 10+ years of professional experience withinsustainability. Prior to joining Ørsted, Svend was asustainability consultant in Deloitte. He holds a master’s
degree in environmental engineering and has studied at
the Technical University of Denmark and Yale
University.

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Jimmy Jia
Senior advisor, research associate in Sustainablefinance, University of Oxford, UK
Constituency: Mediation Institution (Academic)
Jimmy Jia is a research associate of Oxford Net Zero, amember of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, and anon-stipendiary lecturer at Mansfield College, Oxford.
His research focuses on improving the comparability ofenvironmental accounting systems, such that investors
can make capital deployment decisions between entities.
This helps valuate climate exposure on asset value,
integrates environmental, social and governance (ESG)
indicators into the due diligence process, and aligns
corporate strategy with ESG goals.
He sits on numerous boards, where he’s held positionsof Chair, Vice Chair, Chair of Strategy Committee andmembers on Finance and Executive Committees. He has
sat on several CEO hiring committees, and regularly
works with executives to adopt budgets and created longterm strategies to innovate in competitive markets.
Jimmy has published two books, holds five patents, andspeaks internationally on topics of energy futurism. He
received his BS and MS from MIT in Material Scienceand Engineering and MBA from the University of Oxford.
He is currently a DPhil Candidate at the University of
Oxford in Sustainable Finance.

Lindsey LaGesse
Senior Program Manager ofStandards, Microsoft, United States

Sustainability

Constituency: Business Enterprise
Lindsey LaGesse is an Environmental Sustainability
professional with skills specifically linked to operational
carbon reduction activities and GHG emissions inventory
management. Lindsey specializes in corporate
sustainability with experience working for technology,
finance, and real estate focused companies.
Currently,
she
leads
sustainability
standards
engagement and advocacy for Microsoft. Her work
contributes to Microsoft’s sustainability goals to becarbon negative by 2030 and remove all historicalcompany emissions by 2050. In a large organization like
Microsoft, Lindsey is keen on weaving sustainability
throughout all aspects of the business to generate
impactful change. She favors collaboration, pragmatism,
and communication to drive climate improvement
through internal support and external partnerships.

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Lindsey holds a B.S. in International Business andSustainable Business and an M.S. in Sustainable
Management from University of Wisconsin programs.

Timothy Letts
Deputy Director, Corporate Climate Engagement
WWF, United States
Constituency: Civil Society
As Deputy Director for Corporate Climate Engagement at
WWF-US, Tim Letts collaborates with leading companies
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mobilize value
chains, and accelerate progress toward net-zero. His
work with the business community to drive climate action
includes WWF's Climate Business Network, promoting
corporate adoption of science-based targets through the
Science Based Targets initiative, and tracking thecorporate climate & energy landscape through WWF’s
Power Forward report series.
Prior to WWF, Tim served in the United States Navy in avariety of leadership roles. He holds an MBA withspecializations in strategy and change management from
NYU, and a BS in ocean engineering from the UnitedStates Naval Academy. Tim was a 2013 EDF Climate
Corps Fellow and is based in Washington, DC.

Azahara Merino Martos
Technician,Secretariat for Strategic Transitions andTerritorial Development, head of EcologicalTransition Area Confederación Sindical deComisiones Obreras (CCOO), Spain
Constituency: Labor
Azahara Merino is currently technician at the Secretariat
for Strategic Transitions and Territorial Development,
head of Ecological Transition Area in the Confederación
Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO). Previously,
she was Environment Technician at the CCOO
Confederal Secretariat for Environment and Mobility. As
part of her work Azahara studies topics related to justtransition, energy, climate change, circular economy andsocial economy. She is analyzing and preparing reportson the forementioned subjects; monitoring regulations
and policies on issues related to these areas, at thenational, European and international levels; conducting
studies, reports, publications and articles; and prepareand delivery papers and presentations at national andEuropean round tables, seminars and conferences.
Azahara holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences in the
University of Granada (Spain), with a Post-doctorate in
Renewable Energies in the Laboratory of Low

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Temperature Materials (LMBT) of the "Universidade
Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)/IFGW-Instituto de
Fisica Gleb Wataghin. Campinas-Sao Paulo (Brazil).
Azahara has a degree in environmental sciences fromthe University of Granada. She worked at the Water
Institute of the University of Granada and participated inseveral research projects in her area of expertise andpublished several articles in scientific journals.

Zahra Omar
Environmental justice attorney,
Environmental Rights, South Africa

CentreforConstituency: Civil Society
Zahra Omar joined the Centre for Environmental Rights(CER) in 2017. Zahra completed her articles in the CER’s
Mining Programme and was admitted as an attorney ofthe High Court of South Africa in 2019. Since then, Zahra
has been working as an environmental justice attorney in
the CER’s Corporate Accountability & Transparency
Programme where she works to expose institutions of
power and their decisions and policies in order toadvance transparency and environmental & climate
justice. On behalf of the CER, Zahra plays a key role asa member of the Fair Finance Coalition of Southern
Africa, a civil society coalition working towards ensuringthat public finance institutions invest in a socially andenvironmentally responsible manner.
Zahra holds an LLB from the University of Cape Town
and is currently reading for her LLM in Human Rights Law
where her dissertation focuses on the constitutional
obligations of financial institutions in light of the justtransition. Zahra is particularly interested in the link
between human rights and climate and environmental
justice.

Guo Peiyuan
Chairman of SynTao Green Finance Co Ltd, China
Constituency: Investment Institution
Dr. Guo Peiyuan is Chairman of SynTao Green Finance,a professional service provider of ESG rating, green bondverification and green finance advisory.
Dr. Guo has around 17 years experiences on ESG andsustainability. He has served a number of clientscovering financial institutions, corporations, governments
as well as international organizations. He also serves as
ESG committee members for China Association for
Public Companies, Insurance Asset Management
Association of China, and China Securities Association.
He works closely with international organizations andserves as China Advisor to UNEP Financial Initiative andboard member for AIGCC.

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Dr. Guo has strong experiences on reporting and climate
disclosure. As a GRI Stakeholder Council member(2010-2016), he is familiar with GRI Standards 2021. Dr.
GUO supports several Chinese financial institutions to
calculate carbon emission at operational level and asset
level. He has strong understandings on relevant
standards such as GHG Protocol, PCAF, TCFD, ISSB,
etc.
Dr. Guo holds B.S. in environmental engineering and a
Ph.D. in management from Tsinghua University. He
teaches MBA course Business Performance andSustainability in School of Economics and Management,
Tsinghua University.

Caroline Rees
President and Co-Founder of Shift, United States
Constituency: Civil Society
Caroline Rees is President and Co-Founder of Shift, a
non-profit organization working to build a world in whichbusiness gets done with respect for people’s dignity.
Caroline oversees the organization’s strategy andthought leadership work. In recent years, she has
focused on corporate reporting as a catalyst for better
human rights risk management, and on improving thedata and methods used to evaluate companies’ social
performance as part of ESG analysis. She has written
and spoken extensively on the relevance of business
respect for human rights to movements that seek toadvance sustainability, equality, ESG investing,stakeholder capitalism, and human and social capital.
Caroline was a British diplomat from 1992 to 2006. While
heading the UK's human rights team at the United
Nations, she chaired the negotiations that establishedthe mandate of the Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General on business and human rights. She
became lead advisor to John Ruggie after he wasappointed to that role, and was centrally involved in thedrafting of the UN Guiding Principles on Business andHuman Rights. From 2009 to 2011 she was also Directorof the Governance and Accountability Program at theHarvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Responsibility
Initiative. Caroline is a Commissioner on the BusinessCommission to Tackle Inequality.Based on theorganisation’s leading expertise in advancing business
respect for human rights consistent with the UNGPs,
Shift is increasingly asked to partner with various climate
and environment focused organisations to integrate apeople-lens to their work. These have included the
Climate Disclosures Standards Board (prior to its
integration into ISSB); the Taskforce for Nature-Related
Financial Disclosures and the Science-Based Target
Network.

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Christoph Töpfer
Senior Research and Policy Officer at the German
Environment Agency’s (UBA), Germany
Constituency:
Mediation
Governmental Agency)

Institution(Inter-Christoph Töpfer is the German Environment Agency’s(UBA) corporate sustainability and environmental
management expert. His work is currently focused on
corporate sustainability reporting, climate change
mitigation and risk management as well as
environmental supply chain due diligence. He advises
the German Government, European Commission andinternational organizations and has initiated andsupervised various research projects in these fields.
Christoph brings extensive experience in international
standardization, where he chairs a working group to
develop a series of environmental management
standards. As part of EFRAG’s Task Force for thedevelopment of Draft European Sustainability ReportingStandards, Christoph co-led the work on the climate
reporting standards ESRS E1.
Christoph is a trained economist and holds master
degrees in sustainable development and technicalbusiness management. Before his time at UBA, he wasa sustainability and quality engineer in the German
photovoltaics industry.

Michel Washer
Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, Solvay, Belgium
Constituency: Business EnterpriseMichel has spent most of his career within Solvay invarious functions, including engineering, HSE, marketingand sales, strategy. Since 2012 he is deputy chiefsustainability officer, and in charge of Solvay’s extrafinancial reporting. He has implemented the GRI G4
Guidelines for Solvay’s reporting, and more recently, the
GRI Standards.
From 2019 till March 2023 he was member of the Global
Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), the independent
body with sole responsibility for developing and issuing
the GRI Standards.
He organized the progressive evolution of Solvay’s
annual reporting to a combined report, then to an
integrated report. Born in 1960, he graduated with a
Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Free
University of Brussels.

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