Paul Clements-Hunt

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Paul is a Special Advisor with over 30 years' experience in sustainability, climate and ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategy for corporate, investor and policy-making institutions globally. He is a former United Nations official (2000-2012) credited with coining the phrase ESG in May 2004 and delivered the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in April 2006. PRI is now backed by more than 4500 investment institutions representing US$ 100 trillion in assets. Paul was a Founding Board Member of the PRI (2006-2012).

Paul advises clients across a range of sectors focused on maximising sustainability opportunities as new markets emerge in global value chains. He helps to build novel and impactful partnerships enabling private families, business, government, multilateral institutions and civil society to collaborate effectively to accelerate the delivery of sustainability goals. He works with the world's largest banks, insurers and investors to help them tackle climate and ESG challenges creatively.

After leaving the UN in 2012, Paul focused on the conception, development and delivery of impact businesses in emerging economies. He is a much sought-after speaker on the evolution and deployment of sustainable finance and responsible investment globally. His career spans roles as an entrepreneur, UN official, energy and environment policy specialist, and in the media.

Key Experience

Between 2003-2006, Paul and his United Nations team conceived ESG as a concept, delivered for the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), in 2022 supported by 4500 investment institutions representing US$ 100 trillion in assets, and commissioned in 2005 a 150-page legal interpretation of ESG in the context of fiduciary law in the nine major capital markets.
As a United Nation’s official, Paul supported former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown during 2011-2012 for his work on financial stability for the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Sustainable Development, ahead of the 2012 Global Sustainable Development Summit in Rio.
Between 2012-2017, Paul played an entrepreneurial role to conceive, develop, secure investment for, and launch a London-Paris based specialist ESG investment research company. He helped to engineer a joint venture between the company with a French multi-asset class investment firm managing €60 billion with a view to placing sustainability as central to all of their equity, fixed income and real estate investment products. Successfully divested in 2017.
Paul worked with the UN Development Programme, the Turkish Government, and 40 global mayors, to conceive, draft, negotiate and launch the Gaziantep Declaration focused on the needs of refugees affected by conflict, food insecurity, and climate change ahead of the first Global Refugee Summit convened by the UN Refugee Agency and Swiss Government in Geneva in December 2019.
Between 2012-current, Paul helped to develop MWEZI – moonlight in Swahili – as a for-profit, last mile distributor of solar lighting and agri-tech systems, backed by credit-based financial inclusion and insurance products, for 60,000 farming and fishing families in the Lake Victoria region of Western Kenya. Between 2019-current, structured and negotiated the exportation of the MWEZI last mile model to Amazonia with one of Brazil’s largest sanitation companies.
In 1992, Paul conceived, secured investment for and launched the Bangkok-based Environmental Business Group (EBG)Co., Ltd, as one of Southeast Asia’s first environmental market consultancies assisting international engineering and technology firms to penetrate the region’s dynamic environmental markets. In 1994, Paul took the idea inside Societe Generale du Surveillance (SGS) Group, the Swiss headquartered global testing, inspection and verification agency. Paul developed the business for SGS from 1994-1998.
From January 1998 until late 2000, Paul was the Senior Policy Officer, Energy and Environment, for the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), also known as the World Business Organization (WBO). For nearly three years, Paul represented the ICC global business network on energy and environment issues with, inter alia, the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, the OECD, and key multilateral agencies focused on the role of business in sustainability policy issues.

Career History

Founder & CEO, The Blended Capital Group (2012-2022)

Head, UNEP Finance Initiative, United Nations Geneva, Switzerland (November 2000-March 2012)

Senior Policy Manager, Energy and Environment, International Chamber of Commerce, Paris, France (January 1998-November 2000)

Head, Environmental Business Unit, Societe Generale du Surveillance (SGG) Group, Bangkok, Thailand (May 1994-December 1997)

Founder & CEO, Environmental Business Group (Thailand) Co., Ltd, Bangkok, Thailand (May 1992-May 1994)

Journalist, Worked for a range of regional, national (UK) and international media outlets, latterly specialising as an environmental journalist ( May 1988- October 1991)

University College Cardiff, Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism (October 1987-May 1988)

University of East Anglia, BA (Hons) Economics (October 1983-May 1986)