Imperial Business School's Leonardo Centre on Business for Society will bring its latest sustainability research directly to institutional investors this month, co-hosting an invitation-only roundtable during New York Climate Week. The Investor Case for Transformation takes place on 24 September at the World Climate Summit in New York, convened with Natixis Investment Managers and the World Climate Foundation. 

The 60-minute closed-door session will bring together around 30 senior asset owners, asset managers and private-market investors to test a practical question: can observable evidence of corporate transformation give investors a more decision-useful signal than intentions, disclosures or sustainability labels alone? For the Leonardo Centre, it is a chance to take its research out of the report and into the room where capital allocation decisions are actually made. 

The discussion draws on the Centre's GOLDEN Sustainability Dataset, which tracks more than 360,000 initiatives across around 3,000 US-listed companies between 2015 and 2024, part of a global dataset covering 2.6 million initiatives at more than 23,000 companies. Using a behavioural maturity framework that distinguishes advocacy, preparation and transformation, the research found that a portfolio of US companies leading on transformative, innovative sustainability action generated 4.56% annualised alpha over the period studied, without taking on more downside risk than the market. 

The roundtable is structured around four themes: identifying transformation, strengthening investment decisions, translating evidence into practice and mobilising capital for transformation. It combines a short presentation of the findings with a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. 

The confirmed panel is moderated by Laura Kaliszewski, Global Head of Client Sustainable Investing at Natixis Investment Managers, and includes Livio Scalvini, Executive Director of the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society; Richard Damania, Chief Economist at the World Bank; André Schneider, Chairman of the World Climate Foundation; Manon Salomez, Impact & ESG Specialist at Mirova US; and Hua Cheng, Portfolio Manager at Mirova US. 

Livio said the research was built to be used rather than filed away: "This is not an academic paper for citation. It has to be simple, it has to be clear, and it has to come with guidance on how you apply it. Nobody else has this data, so this is about collaborating to enable real adoption, and translating that into impact." 

He added that scale depends on the network built around the research, not a single pilot: "The network of actors is the way to scale this. It is not about one pilot application, it is about impact at a systemic level. Value chain, scalability, and doing that through data networks and global platforms, that is our contribution." 

The roundtable is one of several events Livio will take part in during New York Climate Week, spanning behavioural transformation, sustainable finance, Scope 3 decarbonisation and market mechanisms, reflecting the Leonardo Centre's wider push to connect rigorous sustainability evidence with the investors, companies and policymakers who can put it into practice.