A New Era of Public Procurement Policy: Supplier Disclosures of Climate Information

Brought to you by a joint partnership between SPLC and CERES

Join SPLC and Ceres as we explore an emerging trend in sustainable procurement: corporate climate reporting and transition plans. Historically, public-sector buyers have collected information from vendors regarding their policies and actions, including whether they have enough financial resources, and their history of following laws. Today, new types of organization-wide data is being collected from large suppliers: information on greenhouse gas emissions, climate-related financial risks, and strategies for transitioning to low-pollution business models. Panelists will explain why local, state and national governments view this information as essential for protecting taxpayers from the growing financial risks of climate and for maintaining supply chain resilience.

Learning objectives:

• Develop greater knowledge about important trends in public procurement and how procurement rules can be designed to advance sustainability and reduce financial risk
• Adopt greater preparedness for the shift toward enterprise-level disclosures in government contracting
• Understand current thinking about collaborations within companies, such as between those with enterprise risk management and climate change reporting functions and those with government contracting functions
• Identify practical strategies for public and private sector buyers to reduce climate-related risk and improve procurement outcomes

Featuring:

Moderator: Steven Rothstein, Managing Director, Ceres Accelerator

Steven M. Rothstein is the founding Managing Director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets.

The Ceres Accelerator aims to transform the practices and policies that govern capital markets in order to accelerate reduction of the worst financial impacts of the climate crisis and other sustainability threats.

Steven’s 40 years of experience will be critical to explore the mst effective strategies for the Accelerator to focus on and move capital markets towards climate sustainability.

He has worked at local, state, federal and international levels of government. Steven served on many non-profit and government boards. He has spoken and written extensively and worked with partners in the corporate, non-profit, government and philanthropy sectors.

Dr Helen Tooze, Senior Policy Researcher, Canada Climate Law Initiative

Helen Tooze is a Senior Policy Researcher with the Canada Climate Law Initiative through a postdoctoral research fellowship with the University of British Columbia. She has authored three climate-risk governance guides for directors of Canadian credit unions, major mining firms, and the real estate sector. Helen holds a PhD from UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, an MA with distinction in Banking and Law from Bangor University, Wales, and an LLB (Honours) degree from The Open University, England. Her research interests encompass banking and securities law, financial intermediation, corporate governance, structured finance, mandatory climate reporting, sustainable finance and financial systemic risk in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Since 2019, she has contributed to the Canada Climate Law Initiative through research on climate governance, disclosure, and comparative climate regulatory policy.

David Carlin, Founder, D.A. Carlin and Company

David Carlin advises governments and executives on how to thrive in a changing and volatile future. He is a globally recognized thought-leader on sustainability, finance, and innovation. He is the CEO of D.A. Carlin and Company, which provides future-proof tools and skills to organizations around the world.

He co-founded the Risk Centre at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which produces practical resources for the financial sector to manage environmental risks and capitalize on sustainable opportunities.

David has been an advisor to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), the UK’s Transition Finance Council, the Glasgow Financial Alliances for Net Zero (GFANZ), and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI).

A Forbes contributor and senior research associate at Cambridge, he teaches sustainability strategy at University College Dublin.

David has spoken at numerous COPs and other international summits, and his work has appeared in the Financial Times and Time Magazine. He is the author of Accelerating Transition and The Customer is the Planet.

Get his insights through his weekly newsletter, on his podcast, and on LinkedIn (165K+ followers)

Felix Preston, Director of Research & Program, Climate Arc

Felix Preston is Director of Research & Program at Climate Arc, a non-profit organization working to unlock capital flows to meet global climate goals. Felix joined Arc from Generation Investment Management, where he was Director, Sustainability Impact and Research. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, focusing on sustainable transitions in industrial, energy and food systems. He has been working in sustainability for 20 years.

Catherine Atkin, Director, Carbon Accountable

Catherine Atkin is an attorney and global expert on sustainability reporting and voluntary and compliance carbon markets.  In her role as the Director of Carbon Accountable she was an architect and chief technical advisor on the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) California’s groundbreaking corporate GHG emissions reporting law.  Carbon Accountable is also the sponsor of SB 755, the California Contractor Climate Transparency Act, introduced by Senator Blakespear in January 2025. 

She works internationally as the Co-founder of the Capital Coalition’s Global Digital Single Market Data Alliance and Co-chair of the Stanford Law School CodeX Climate Data Policy Initiative (CDPI).  She received a BA from Stanford University, a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law and a master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of California Los Angeles.