OUR EXPERTISE
Innovation & Sustainability
Innovation & Sustainability team:
Partner, Global Macroeconomics & Transition Innovation
Dimitri Zenghelis
Dimitri co-heads our Macroeconomics and Financial markets, and Innovation & Sustainability work.
An internationally reputed economist, Dimitri advises governments, banks, financial institutions, NGOs, and other international organisations and corporations on sustainability, climate change, innovation, economic modelling, and clean urbanisation.
He set up the Wealth Economy Project at the Bennett Institute at the University of Cambridge, is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), Chair of the Wealth Committee for Capital Generation Partners, and a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission.
Prior to this he served as Head of Policy at the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE and Chief Economist for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.
He was also lead author on the ground-breaking Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and worked at HM Treasury as Head of Economic Forecasting and Head of the European Monetary Union branch.
Dimitri holds a BA from the University of Oxford and an MSc from the University of Bristol.
Partner
Silja Sepping
Silja co-heads the firm’s Innovation & Sustainability practice area. She is also a core member of the firm’s Macroeconomics and Financial Markets team and part of the Expert Witness and Litigation Support team.
Silja is a key contributor to the firm’s bespoke research projects, and to the regular macroeconomic analysis. She has a particular specialisation in environmental and technology issues. Silja has produced an important suite of corporate briefs on the environmental impacts of a wide range of sectors and activities, many of which have been published by the Sustainable Markets Initiative, launched by the former Prince of Wales.
Prior to joining the team, Silja was a Senior Investment Analyst at GLC Global Macro hedge fund, where she was responsible for macroeconomic research and market analysis, with a primary focus on emerging markets and FX. Before that, Silja worked for Lehman Brothers as an Emerging Markets Economist, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe. While at the bank Silja was responsible for macroeconomic forecasts and market analysis, leading meetings with the region’s policymakers, speaking with journalists, and contributing regularly to the weekly and monthly publications.
Silja holds a first-class honours degree in Economics and Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, and an MSc in Economics from Stockholm School of Economics.
Businesses and governments are increasingly committing to ‘net zero’ targets and to climate transition plans.
The need to decarbonise by 2050 is a strategic imperative that is already having major consequences for all sectors of the economy. Technology-driven innovation is creating new markets, and wiping out old ones. This brings with it disruption and associated political challenges.
Because of the scale and pace of change – actual and future – conventional analytic and business tools are mostly not up to the task. Understanding and mastering these challenges necessitates appreciation of the interconnections between technological, behavioural, and political change and, with it, of forward-looking risk and opportunity. Independent Economics provides the relevant analytical and policy tools that enable clients to meet these new strategic challenges.
Independent Economics offers a combination of a wide range of expertise, as well as deep specialist knowledge relating to the shift to a carbon- and resource-constrained future.
Our advisers offer a mix of capital market, policy, business and academic experience and insight.
- We advise governments, companies, financial institutions, central banks, and NGOs to help them secure policy-led market solutions for attaining carbon-free and ESG goals.
- With our experience of working in International Financial Institutions, we are in touch with key decisionmakers at the highest levels, helping investors to connect ESG opportunities with international development resources.
- We work with a rich network of academic and policy experts, including from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, London School of Economics, the UK Committee on Climate Change as well as former senior finance ministry and central bank officials.
We advise clients on:
- The economics and politics of sustainability and climate change including specific regulatory and energy policy as they affect corporate and investment strategies.
- Market-shaping tipping points, based on our understanding of carbon and energy markets and anticipation of technological, behavioural, and institutional innovation.
- Advancing beyond reliance on climate scenarios, based on static models that currently inform the regulatory approach, to account for system-wide changes in behaviour and technologies.
- Helping clients understand and respond to the rapidly evolving regulatory environment in both advanced and emerging markets.
- Designing long-term investment strategies in asset management that reflect climate science and other sustainability pressures, such as biodiversity loss and nature markets.
- Development of risk management and hedging strategies in asset allocation and investment in the light of company-specific and economy-wide climate scenarios.
- Designing ESG strategies for companies including preparing for imminent and wide-ranging changes in disclosure and sustainability reporting.
- The design of corporate and sovereign funding strategies, including through green bonds, that can respond to shifting investor mandates and preferences.
- Harnessing carbon markets in achieving ESG goals and the energy transition.
- Advising on energy policy and pricing issues to align with sustainability goals, including devising politically-sensitive pathways to reduce or eliminate energy price subsidies.
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