Banking for Climate

Summary

In this environmental podcast episode, host Mike Smith divulges his origin story and how he got into climate, discusses the Paris Climate Accords, Greenland ice sheet, sea level rise and what you can do about it, climate and banking, as well as an insightful interview with a sustainability professional from a regional bank.

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In this conversation, Mike Smith, the founder and CEO of Aclymate, interviews Laura Rossi, the Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Amerant Bank. They discuss the importance of addressing climate change and the role of banks in promoting sustainability. 

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They also talk about the need for more guidance and frameworks for companies to follow in their sustainability efforts. Amerant Bank's sustainability program is driven by the desire to do the right thing and make a positive impact. They believe that attracting and retaining talent is crucial, and younger generations are increasingly interested in working for companies that prioritize sustainability. The bank has seen success in talent attraction through their internship program and focus on diversity, inclusion, climate resilience, and social and environmental lending. 

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While there has been internal resistance, the program has gained momentum with the support of the C-suite and a clear mandate from the CEO. Investors have varied responses, with larger institutional investors taking sustainability seriously. The lack of regulation makes it challenging for investors to evaluate companies, but they appreciate transparency and a serious commitment to sustainability. 

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Laura Rossi, the head of sustainability at Amerant, is driven by her personal ethics and the desire to make a meaningful contribution. She believes that climate action is no longer a choice and is excited to be part of the solution. However, she also acknowledges the worry that it may already be too late to turn things around. 

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Chapters

00:00 Introducing The Climate Dad

03:46 Empowering Individuals to Take Action on Climate Change

04:43 The Shift from Debating Science to Addressing Problems

11:05 The Greenland Ice Sheet and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

14:38 Taking Action to Minimize the Severity of Climate Change

14:59 Debunking Net Zero Myths: Individuals Can Make a Difference

19:55 Amerant Bank: A Community Bank Committed to Climate Action

20:09 Interview with Laura Rossi, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Amerant Bank

51:46 Episode Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Mike Smith (00:13)
Hey everybody and welcome to the inaugural episode of The Climate Dad. This is a podcast where I'm going to talk about and explain the news and science of climate change and the things that you can do as an individual and as part of organizations to affect the world that we're going to live in. So first, maybe I should explain a little bit about who I am. I'm the founder and CEO of a company called Aclymate, A-C-L-Y-M-A-T-E. And Aclymate is a company that is explicitly out there to help small to medium sized businesses to measure, reduce, report, and offset their climate footprint.

But I didn't start out that way. I actually grew up as a pretty middle-class kid in Boise, Idaho My father was a teacher. My mother was a nurse And I was fortunate enough to get a free education courtesy of the United States government. I attended the US Naval Academy Went on and flew F-18s for about 12 and a half years active duty Had an amazing time with that really grew to appreciate both our country and the world that we live in but along the way

I came to realize that there was something that I wanted to work on a little bit more, and that was climate change. It started with an experience I had as a kid in Idaho. When I was nine years old, there was a big wildfire, put up a mushroom cloud that was very memorable to me, and my grandfather, who was a forester, a retired forester, told me that it would grow back. 22 years later, after I'd gotten married, and I brought my wife back to Idaho, I saw that wasn't really the case, and I decided I was gonna try to do something about it.

I left the service in 2014, started my first company, RenewWest in 2015, and got into climate right away. RenewWest was about planting, initially it was about planting trees in areas burned by wildfires and converting them into carbon offsets as a way to fund reforestation efforts. But along the way I grew frustrated that we were not doing nearly enough on the emissions reduction side of things and that...

We needed to plant a lot of trees. That's an essential part of our climate future, but we also need to be cutting emissions much more quickly. And most of the solutions seem to be something that was really only built for specialists, for experts, and that we needed to figure out a way to be able to interact with the billions of climate decisions that are made every day by people that aren't climate experts. And so that was the birth of Aclymate.

Fortunate to have a great team here. And one of the things that they've told me is that in this role, our company helps to make climate more approachable for people. But a lot of what I do is make climate more approachable for people. And so hence the name of the show, The Climate Dad. I even have my Climate Dad shirt, for those of you that are watching on video. And it was given to me by my staff. Young woman on my staff said that I reminded a lot of her.

a lot of her father. And I said, Well, I hope you like your dad. And she said, Yeah, she actually really loved her dad. And one of the things that she appreciated about like, what her dad does is when she was a girl was to take things that were scary and kind of confusing and make them maybe not so scary and not so confusing. And that's a lot of what we do at Aclymate That's a lot of what I do. I was telling that story to a friend of mine. And he said, Yeah, you've got strong dad vibes. You've been

We had two different hats that we could pick from. And he said, I picked the dad hat. And that's just always been who I am.  and that's, that's true. I'm very much a father. Uh, I'm lucky to be married to a wonderful woman. I have two wonderful kids. We do all the things that I,  love with them in the outdoors, backpacking, skiing, occasionally a little bit of sailing.  and I worry about their future with, I think a lot of people do as well. So this podcast is my effort.

to help to explain, to make things more approachable, a little bit less scary, because I think that my theory is, is that when you have knowledge about it, you'll feel, it won't feel so overwhelming. And when you have knowledge and when it doesn't feel so overwhelming, you'll actually get to work and we'll have a little bit more progress on climate, one decision at a time. And not only will that have a benefit to the climate, but you'll also feel better as a person. There's nothing that helps to...

kind of make a sense of helplessness go away as actually getting to work on the problem. So please follow along wherever you get your podcasts. This will also be shared in various social media channels in pieces, but I would appreciate a like and follow as we go through this journey. If you have any questions or comments as we go through the podcast as well at any time, please make sure to send them our way and I'd love to answer questions. Thanks for joining me.

Mike Smith (04:45)
decade now. I've seen a lot of changes and one of the changes I'm actually most excited about is that except for a few one serious people who really aren't interested in being taken seriously, there's less effort in being expended on trying to convince people of the science and more effort in moving towards addressing the problems. In my opinion that started to change really significantly around 2015. 2015 is important because that's when the Paris Climate Accords were signed. For those of you that aren't familiar, it was created

It was an agreement that was signed in Paris at a conference known as COP21, or the 21st Conference of the Parties, which were all the countries in the world that were concerned about climate change. As the name would indicate, they had met 20 times before trying to create a global carbon market and they just ultimately decided that they just couldn't get that done. So, at COP21, they went a pretty different direction and it was a pretty important change.

And what they said was the science has been out there. We understand what's going on for the most part. There's ambiguity on when certain climate tipping points are going to occur, but we can have like at least a boundary or reasonable certainty of where those are going to happen and what the consequences if we cross some of those tipping points will be. In later in this episode, I'll talk about one climate tipping point specifically around the Greenland ice sheep, but, and I'll talk about other climbing.

tipping points in other episodes. But what COP21, the Paris Accords did was is it changed the science from something to be debated into a policy outcome that we were all looking for. And specifically COP21, the Paris Accords said that we have a no greater, or we have a threshold that we shall not exceed of two degrees Celsius warming above the pre-industrial average.

And that our target should actually be about one and a half degrees. Because once we cross one and a half degrees, a series of climate tipping points start happening from which we cannot come back. Once we cross two degrees, more climate tipping points start happening as well. And the path that the world had been on prior to Paris was actually one of close to like five, six degrees of warming, just blowing it out the doors. Really dangerous stuff. Again, I'll talk about that some other time. And we've been making a lot of progress. So I'm...

I'm very happy about that. So let's talk about the Greenland ice sheet. So the Greenland ice sheet is one that you've heard of for a long time. We talk about sea level rise. And just if you haven't been following along, the basics of it are there's a lot of sea ice, but just like ice in your glass, and when that melts, that won't really change the level of the ocean. The Arctic ice sheet has been getting smaller throughout our lifetimes. And as a result, it's been getting smaller.

But as a result, the sea level hasn't really risen because that's a floating ice. There are two big chunks of ice, however, on this planet that aren't in the ocean. One of them's in Greenland and an even bigger one of them is in Antarctica. In Antarctica, it's broken between the West and the East Antarctic ice sheets. Greenland's the most fragile. And so Greenland, you know, you may hear about like, when the Greenland ice sheet melts, it'll be pretty catastrophic. And that's not wrong. The Greenland ice sheet,

Current projections are that were we to lose the Greenland ice sheet in its entirety, that would raise sea levels by somewhere around 25 feet. So that's a lot. That is most coastal cities around the world are being flooded.

Timeline, however, matters. The Greenland ice sheet for that full 24 and 25 feet is somewhere between one and 10,000 years. So needless to say, we're gonna have some time to adapt to that. So don't feel quite so scared about it. However, that doesn't mean don't do anything about it either, right? This is a show about education and nuance. And so the...

What does this mean in your lifetime? Well, in the next 50 years, you should expect somewhere between two to five inches of sea level rise, just from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. And two to five inches may not seem like a lot, but as anybody that's ever had a little bit of flooding, all it takes is one inch of flooding to really destroy a house. And so it's also worth pointing out that this is just the Greenland ice sheet's contribution to it. There are other things that will cause sea levels to rise.

The thermal expansion of the oceans as they warm, warm water takes up more space. That will cause it to rise. The melting of the ice sheets in Antarctica, that will cause some rise there. So this shouldn't be considered as just like a we can disregard this, of course, but just along the lines of knowing that when we cross this tipping point, these are the consequences that we're going to have. There's a lot of things that kind of go into this.

So first of all is obviously there's temperature when it warms up that will cause ice to melt. And it's noted, it should be noted that Greenland being within the Arctic and the Arctic is the fastest warming part of the planet. We talk about like one and a half degrees being kind of the average warming across the planet that we want to maintain to try to stay below. But that's an average Arctic. The Arctic has been heating up very significantly, you know, four or five, six degrees on average in some places.

And that's a big difference. When you go from an average temperature below freezing to above freezing, you're going to see some pretty drastic changes in biomes and outcomes. And that's causing things in Greenland like the rediscovery of abandoned bases from the US Army dating from the Cold War era. You're finding mammoths that are emerging out of the ice in Siberia. That warming is having a pretty drastic effect on the Arctic.

And that's going to accelerate. That's the other part of this. If you think about the ice sheet, it has elevation, it has height. And that causes two things. The first one is as it melts, it gets lower in altitude. And as you get lower in altitude, things warm up as well. So that will cause an acceleration. The second is when ice melts, it turns into water. And water, as we all know, has to flow downhill. And so when water flows downhill, it picks up speed. And it picks up heat.

There's just the kinetic energy warms the water. That water ends up, that heat ends up being added back into the ice, accelerating the melt of that as well. So you've got some feedback loops there that start going the wrong direction. And so while it may be two to five inches of melting over the next 50 years, that'll be the least amount of melting that'll happen associated with that. The other thing that happens with the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

I mean, this is a big one for anybody that lives in North America or Europe, especially, is its effect on something known as the AMOC, or the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. It's a fancy, you know, technical term for essentially the currents of the North Atlantic Ocean that flow around and make Europe into a pretty habitable and lovely place to live.

known more colloquially here locally is the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, being the warm water that comes up out of the Caribbean and the equatorial Atlantic, and then flows up past the East Coast of the United States. It brings a lot of warm, moist air and makes places further north more habitable than they might otherwise be. This is particularly noticeable if you look at like places in Europe, as it brings this heat to Europe, you can...

you can see about like how the lines of latitude are actually pretty drastic. Virginia, for example, is on the same line of latitude as Morocco. When I lived in Naples, Italy, I used to joke with my sister that she was going south for the winter to go back to Denver, because Denver is actually further south than Naples, Italy, even though Naples is, you know, a warm, lovely Mediterranean climate. And Denver, my home now is a, you know, a fairly montane and dry and cold environment, especially in the winter.

So what happens is all this water that's flowing off of the Greenland ice sheet, that's gonna change how the ocean works in two ways. One, temperature, the cold Arctic water that normally would be kind of coming down and moderating some of this heat is not gonna be quite so cold anymore. The other part is salinity. Big injections of fresh water changes how the AMOC will turn over.

And so instead of having like the normal colder water being more dense and sinking, what you'll have is you'll have warmer, less salty water that will be injected into the system and causing less of the vertical turnover in the water systems. If that slows down, we're gonna be seeing a lot of problems there as well. So we'll talk about the AMOC as a tipping point separately. And it's worth recognizing that all of these things are interconnected.

Thinking about Greenland then, and the melting of that ice sheet, it's not really known exactly when this will happen. Somewhere between 0.8 and about two degrees Celsius of warming is when that's gonna happen. And so what does that mean for you? Well, we've bought it. Like last year we were about 1.4, 1.5 degrees already. It was unexpectedly warm last year compared to what we were projecting. There's some thought that was an anomaly, but.

we have pretty much bought that we're going to lose the Greenland ice sheet. It won't totally happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen. And that can be a little bit of a sobering thought. We have permanently changed the world. This isn't something where if you, you know, were able to tear out the pavement, you know, nature would return, the Greenland ice sheet is going to be gone. And that is part of our life in the Anthropocene, the world that is being, where the primary drivers of...

of climate and habitability are human actions. So I don't mean that, again, to scare you, just to explain to you that while there are some pretty severe consequences and they are going to be more long term, but even in the short term, we have bought some of these consequences already. And the moderate consequences that will be happening in the short term will still have consequences.

That kind of leads me into the thought about the idea of giving up. And so a lot of times you hear people that like to say, well, climate change is already going to happen. They kind of give up. It's almost like a new form of denialism, which is the idea that, well, climate change is going to happen. There's nothing we can do about it. That is both true and false. It's true. Climate change is going to happen. We've already bought it. Like the tipping point with Greenland.

And we can't stop that. But what we can do is change how bad this is going to be. And I'll talk about that again some other time. But whenever I talk about these tipping points, the thought that you should have is, okay, maybe we've bought this tipping point, but we're not gonna buy the next. What can I do about it?

Mike Smith (15:00)
So what can you do about it? There are a couple of persistent myths that I wanna address right now about climate, and I think we should talk about them. The first myth is that an individual can't do anything about climate. And the second myth is that whatever you could do is expensive and really only limited to rich people. So on the first myth, you actually have a superpower. Unless you're a hermit living in the woods, you have a lot of human connections. And your power is that...

By living an intentional and climate -focused life, you can affect the behaviors of the people around you. Without being pushy or preachy, you can influence your family, your workplace, your friends, your church, synagogue, or other faith group, and your government to make different decisions. Your example and your choices matter. The second myth is that climate action is expensive, and that's also untrue. The good people at Project Drawdown, if you haven't spent any time, go over to their website. It's phenomenal.

have done the math and many of the most impactful things you can do actually not only don't cost money, they will make you money or save you money. We'll talk about a few of them as we go through life here, but a good place to start is your bank. It's an unexpected thing here, but just as a reminder, we all know how banks work, which is, you know, you have money, you put it in for savings, they give you an interest rate.

That money then gets lent out to others. The whole economy starts, you know, building and working and these banks are an important component of how the world economy works. Except for that's not working that way as much as it used to. A couple things. One, most of the largest banks in the United States don't offer much of a savings rate. So you're actually not getting any money. It's better than storing it under your, you know, cash under the mattress because it's more secure.

and it's insured by the federal government and things like that. But you're not really making a whole lot of money. For example, at the time of this recording, I was looking at JP Morgan Chase's savings rate, and it was 0 .01%, which is effectively nothing. So you're not making a whole lot of money. And then the second part of it is, is that money, who's it being lent to? Well, for the biggest banks in the United States, 20 to 30 % of that money is being lent to companies.

to invest into fossil fuel projects. To give you an estimate there, of the 11 largest banks in the United States, for every $1 ,000 that you have in a savings account with them, it's the equivalent emissions of flying from New York to Seattle, or 0 .24 metric tons, or somewhere around 500 pounds of carbon emissions. All of that footprint, and you didn't even get a good cup of coffee out of the deal. That's pretty amazing.

And for the four largest banks, Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, that actually goes up to 0 .29 tons or about 640 pounds. Investing in fossil fuels, which are having disastrous effects for the planet, is making these banks money, and they're not even paying you anything for it. So what can you do about it?

Well, there are a few explicit climate focused banks that even have the name climate in their name or Amalgamated Bank is a really well known bank as well in this space. But the report also mentions that just banking locally helps. And when I say banking locally, we're talking about working with credit unions or community banks. And they're typically much, much better on climate. Why? Well, they keep that money in the community. They're not financing big offshore oil projects. They're working at home.

And there's some real benefits to that. One, you'll typically get to know a real human being, a real banker that will know your problems and care about you and your community. Two, you're gonna get an interest rate generally. It may not be huge, but it's certainly gonna be better than the nothing that some of the other banks are offering. So like, what's not to love? Like, why wouldn't you do this?

You can have enough a positive effect on the climate. You can keep the money in your community and you can make a little bit more in money while you're doing it. It's a it's a win all around One of the customers that we've been fortunate to work with here at Aclymate is just one of those banks It's a now it's an outfit called Amerant Bank. If you live in the South Florida area, you may know of the Amerant Arena where the Florida Panthers play And they're a community bank in South Florida and Houston

The people there, I haven't met a single person in that bank that I haven't enjoyed talking to. They're just like really nice people and super professional. I love them. And, you know, core to my, you know, bleeding green heart here is they've been working on climate long before it was cool. They've really been, you know, very intentional about thinking about like the risks that climate plays to South Florida and Houston and about that they want to be part of the solution and less of the problem.

So I was fortunate to be joined for an interview by their senior vice president of investor relations and sustainability, Laura Rossi. And I think you'll find her just as charming as I do.

Mike Smith (20:11)
Okay, so I'm excited to start today and talk with my friend and customer of Aclymate Laura Rossi with Amerant Bank So Laura, I'd love it if you could just introduce yourself a little bit and tell me a little bit about your background and what makes you, you.

Laura Rossi (20:26)
Of course, hi Mike. Professionally speaking here at Amerant, I am the Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability. I am originally from Columbia, from Medellin, where I spent most of my childhood, even though I moved here to Miami in 2000, actually to Michigan, Wisconsin in the early 2000s, and then I started living here in Miami in 2001.

Miami now hits pretty close to home. In other aspects of my life, I am also a wife, a mother of two teenagers, and I enjoy most being around friends and family and good food. Yeah.

Mike Smith (21:04)
Good food. I'd imagine Miami's, the couple times I've been there, it's well known for its food. Do you have a favorite restaurant that you'd like to go to?

Laura Rossi (21:09)
It is.

Many. I have many and I am one of those people who like a lot of cuisines. It's difficult for me to choose just like a single restaurant or a single cuisine. But I just the fact of going out and be with friends and family around good food is just something that I enjoy.

Mike Smith (21:28)
I can see that just in your face. Now you said you're the Senior Vice President for Investor Relations but in your capacity here with Aclymate, we're talking a lot about climate. Maybe you could tell me a little bit about how you ended up having to deal with climate for Amerant?

Laura Rossi (21:43)
And so it is kind of a natural transition that it's taking place at many companies that because the head of IR is so close to the strategy of the company, but also to the messaging that the company wants to put out, as well as the market participants, that being investors, analysts, rating agencies, the sustainability has fallen in many cases in these departments.

And in my case, that's how we felt here, I was the head of investor relations prior to taking on the sustainability role and we just felt that it was the natural place for it to be because I was not only able to track and monitor our goals, our targets, the performance of those involved, but I was also able to integrate into the message that we were already driving through the IR unit, you know, to our market participants.

Mike Smith (22:40)
Gotcha. And how long have you been wearing that sustainability hat in addition to... There's a lot of things going on in IR, so...

Laura Rossi (22:46)
Yeah.

For sustainability in a specific, Amerant started in 2021 where our CEO Jerry Plush joined as a program per se because as a bank Amerant has always been very much involved with the community and trying to make a contribution in the markets that we serve. But Jerry was the one that really brought it in as a program and as a, you know, as a, let's say following the environmental social governance structure.

was very important at that time. And then me personally in August, around August 2022, so a year ago, it's when we did the transition and we moved from having sustainability be a project where we were just trying to identify and do materiality assessment, you know, what were the topics that we wanted to focus on, governance, etc. And we handled it as a project.

function and we're really trying to make this program roll and belonging to each one of the functional units that's when I came into the picture.

Mike Smith (23:51)
And how did you feel about having that role kind of placed under your responsibility?

Laura Rossi (23:56)
No, I really liked it. I am someone who likes challenges. I am very driven and it just fit naturally. So I took on it and I saw the challenge to embed it into our day to day. And that's what I've been focusing on.

Mike Smith (24:12)
I can say from personal experience that comes through. You are a very brass tacks kind of gal. You got right down to the points right on our very first meeting and I really appreciate that about you. What were some of the challenges with that when you first started taking that on? What were things that you didn't know about, what you had to learn about? Tell me about your journey.

Laura Rossi (24:32)
Okay, so there are several.

Internally, I would say the one challenge that we had is that when we started with this topic, developing it as a project, we were working based on people's passion, right? You know, people who naturally were climate oriented or had passion for community serving or, you know, something of that

The program got to a point where that's very important in the beginning, in the stages where you're trying to get it going, but when you need the program to produce the results on a daily basis, it really needs to be focused on the function where that task belongs. So one of the first challenges that I tried to tackle was to be able to identify where

program needed to be, in what department it really belonged because of the functional purpose of that unit. So identifying that and really moving away from just wanting to contribute or asking for a favor into being more strategic into the functions that each initiative needs to be at was one of the challenges, but that was quickly identified and overcome.

thing just more in the macro environment. To me there is still a lot of ambiguity regarding the frameworks that companies need to follow. It is almost like optional. You can choose here, you can choose that, you can report based on a framework. If you don't want you can just report based on your own criteria. So I would really like to have more of a guideline.

you know, this is what companies need to do. And if you're, you know, from one billion to 10 billion, then this is the framework that you need to follow. I just wish there was a little bit more guidance regarding frameworks. And I would also say ratings, the rating system, or the rating agencies seem to still be very black box, especially for issuing companies.

sometimes it's difficult to really understand why of the why of the ratings. There is not apples to apples between companies. So those are definitely challenges that I that I would point to.

Mike Smith (26:59)
Gotcha. Now you said that this was, the sustainability journey of Amerant began in 2021 and the CEO, Jerry, took over. So maybe you could tell me just a little bit more about Amerant as a bank and then why, and why you've decided, like as an organization, have decided to go down this pathway of sustainability.

Laura Rossi (27:06)
Yes.

Of course. I would say, and this is probably something you've heard many times, banks are really a key character in the journey of sustainability globally because banks are the ones that enable funding to go around and whether it's company or consumers, the fact that we can lend out

make either an environmental project or a social project take place, it's very relevant. So I would say, and that's why I mentioned in the beginning of this conversation, that it was not in 2021 that we started to contribute. As a bank, banks, inherently, they contribute to the communities that they serve, and they have social impact for sure. And the fundamentals of a bank tend to be

with the governance aspect of ESG or sustainability. You know, a bank has to offer for banking. It has to make itself available to provide financial literacy to the communities that it serves. There are just things, you know, that the ethics and the transparency of a bank by regulation are always there, right? So,

you know, sustainability and ESG or however you want to call it, not to get involved into the three infamous letters. It's a topic that it's very natural for banks, right? However, like I was saying, when our CEO Jerry Plush joined, he has just a very, very strong mandate to do something that is very simple and it's the right thing. And that is, you know, that's the motto that we've used.

We want to do what is right and we want to be leaders. We don't want to be followers. So, you know in order for us to be sustainable in our operations we feel that we need to have a program that highlights, you know, these areas. The environment, the social contribution, the governance of our business and so that's, you know, that's our main goal. I think that he was very clear from day one

the right thing and what you know being sustainable is going to take us to do the right thing and if we want to attract the right talent we need to do what is right and to be sustainable because nowadays people want to work for companies that are on the path of contribution and making a positive impact. So

Mike Smith (29:56)
I love that. You know, it's very clear from your branding on your website that you talk about how important being a community bank is. You're a large community bank. You have 26 locations, right? You know, so you're a significant community bank, but you still are very heavy into the word community. The way you talk about it, it's clear that is a motivating force for you all.

Laura Rossi (30:06)
Yes.

Yeah, we have branches, 17 here in South Florida, six in the Houston area. We are also very focused now in growing the market in Tampa and also continuing to grow here in South Florida. So yes, it is definitely, it is very important for us to not just have centers and

to be able to contribute in all the senses. So definitely.

Mike Smith (30:45)
I love it. One thing that you mentioned there was you were talking about how like this is important, you thought for like a talent attraction and retention. You know, you're now a couple of years into this journey. Maybe you could tell me a little bit about like early successes, things that you've learned along the way in that path.

Laura Rossi (31:00)
Yeah, so.

In the talent retention, it's specifically, I guess, it is difficult to measure right away. I think that's something that comes more in the long term of the company, but you do see a shift these days when you're doing recruiting, that especially the younger generations, they ask about these things. They ask what our values are. They ask what it's important and relevant for us

contribution, what we're doing for climate. These things are things and topics that are coming up during interviews because younger generations do want to contribute and make sure that they're giving their time and their skills and their effort to companies that are going to make an impact. And they're very aligned with that. We also have an internship program with the university, with different local universities here.

And you see also from interacting with these young individuals that they want to be with a company that they feel proud about. So when you have programs like this that give priority to diversity, to inclusion, to climate resilience, to social lending, environmental lending, you see that you are able to attract

younger individuals or just individuals in general who are aligned with these goals and your talent pool grows. So that is why we see that doing the right thing and having an impact program is not only beneficial because it is ensuring our success but it really becomes a highlight or almost like a benefit of Ameren that becomes part of the package of those individuals that

that internship program, it's one of the successes we've had. That's one that comes to mind.

Mike Smith (32:59)
That's awesome. How about on the other side of the equation? I'm sure it's not all sunshine and roses, right? Like you're a fairly large organization. There's a lot of different personalities and people. Have you had any internal resistance to this?

Laura Rossi (33:11)
Yeah, definitely. I would say as I shared earlier in the process, it was not easy to transition from...

individuals that were self-motivated and had a natural passion for these topics, to getting people to do it because it's part of their job and part of their role. For people to really see how sustainability fits into their everyday roles, it's not easy. It takes motivation, it definitely takes for the message to be consistent and coming from top to bottom, and in that I think we were

very successful. We had a gathering at some point where the C-suite met. It was pretty much our CEO and all directs of the CEO and each one of those individuals was given responsibilities and they were they are still to date under the governance of the program. They're called initiative owners. They own them and they're responsible for driving those initiatives. So even though

like the individual executors of those initiatives. When you have a mandate from the top, from the CEO saying that this is important, in fact, from making it one of the seven strategic objectives of the company, our seventh objective, which you can find in many of the earnings goals or investor presentations that we put out, the number seven says, embedding ESG into our DNA. And when you have that mandate,

and you have the C-suite being responsible for those things that permeates throughout the organization. So yes, that was a challenge, but one that we were able to tackle and overcome, and I think that thanks to that, the program is rolling and is moving forward.

I would say one that I don't like to talk about a lot, but it's definitely in our market. And it's the fact that we are in two states, Florida and Texas, who have.

politicized this topic a lot, right? And anyone knows that both of the governments of these states have been very vocal about ESG. And we just don't feel that ESG needs to be about politics. We just feel that it should be. And that's why I try to use the word sustainability, because it's not just those three letters and this woke movement. It's again, going back to the basics, doing the right thing,

do what is best for your communities and to have a positive impact.

Mike Smith (35:49)
100%. It sounds like you all have very capable leadership in order to kind of, you have a few headwinds coming from outside the organization, but it sounds like the messaging was really strong internally and that helped to bring a lot of buy into it. How about the other direction? Maybe how have, you know, your primary roles in investor relations, how have investors responded to this direction?

Laura Rossi (35:54)
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That's a good question. And so you see a mix, honestly. You see that there are investors that are not yet paying that much attention. You know, they obviously say it's good that you do this because there is nothing wrong with wanting to make an impact on a contribution, but they don't necessarily pay attention to it. However, there are some, and I would say the larger investors,

I don't want to name anyone in specific, but the larger investors, institutional investors, I would say those are taking this very seriously and they have committees around this and whole units dedicated to making sure that the companies that they're investing in are really doing what they're expected to do. And they, again, going back to the frameworks and the ratings and all of that, it is not

an easy road to walk on because everyone looks at their own thing, everyone is using different frameworks, everyone is using different guidelines to measure. But at the end at least you have teams being dedicated to this. I have to say that one of the most technical meetings that we've had was or technical questions that we had during a meeting with an investor were about sustainability.

And, you know, they were very pleased that we were able to answer them and give them straight answers because they really wanted to see that we had a program that was not just greenwashing, you know, that it was something serious, that we were committed, that there was a rationale behind the changes that we were writing on our report about. And so, yes, you do see that the larger investors are taking this seriously and do want to

to have companies respond. There is no regulation yet that also makes it a little difficult because since there is nothing that you have to comply or that you have to report on, everyone gives different information so it is not an easy task for these investors to evaluate companies but I'm hoping sometime soon something more specific comes.

to us and we can provide better data and be more, play more on a level field.

Mike Smith (38:33)
It sounds like, it sounds very, one of the things that we work on here at Aclymate is about like trying to make the climate a less confusing topic, but even still, like there is definitely confusion that's gonna happen outside of like the services that like we provide you at Aclymate. It sounds like there's a lot of challenges, like this isn't necessarily your background either, like you're having to learn this as you go.

Laura Rossi (38:52)
Yep.

Mike Smith (38:55)
You're a professional, you're going to do a good job because that's who you are as a professional. But maybe you could tell me a little bit more about your own motivations, your own ethics. Why you feel compelled to do the job that you're doing on this.

Laura Rossi (39:07)
And so I'm going to move into that, but I wanted to say something because before when you asked about the challenges, I do have to agree with what you just said. One of the challenges that when I took on the program, I noticed was the fact that we had some goals related to net zero, to reducing emissions. However, we are a bank, not necessarily emission accountants, right?

And so that is something that was a challenge for us because we were trying to look for all sorts of spreadsheets and calculations in order to really even understand where our missions were. And I do wanna like co-acclimate to the table because it was extremely, extremely easy to work with you guys and to have you be an ally. And you came as a concierge service,

pretty much taken all the data that we needed to provide and create a dashboard that shows us where we are and even move over to do the offsets and to get to those goals. And even like I remember that from our conversations, I was able to reevaluate the way those goals were written so that they made more sense.

in the climate sector, I bet they're facing. And it is through companies like Aclymate that they can tackle that challenge and that climate can become a very tangible goal of theirs. They can easily visualize where they are at and then place targets or goals to offset whatever their desire may be.

So, you know, that I just wanted to mention it because it's, it's definitely.

Mike Smith (40:56)
That's really kind of you, Laura. And I have to say that I can speak for the whole team. We've learned a lot from working with you as well. And so I appreciate the compliment, but the feeling's very mutual here. We've really enjoyed the relationship and I'm pleased to know you as a person too. So to that end, tell me more about you.

Laura Rossi (41:12)
Thank you. And yeah, I'll move over to the question that you asked about, you know, the ethics. And for me, for me it's also been very, like a very natural thing to do. I have to say anyone who knows me knows that I am someone who is very structured in my ways and in my work.

I am a person of method. I also have a very strong mandate. This is at the core of my personality of doing what is expected of me and really doing the right thing and delivering on my word. So when I was thinking about this question, I was just thinking that for me, just more than doing your job and doing it well,

I cannot be working with a program that is not going anywhere. Right? So I needed to feel right away when I joined that this was something that I could take ownership of and that I had a way to monitor and to feel that it was consistent, that we were not putting some targets and goals out there just to have a goal, but that everything was aligned.

We had, if you see the way we're structured, we have five pillars, and then those five pillars are being worked on by trying to reach 13 metrics. And those 13 metrics have 26 initiatives that are driving those metrics, and for those, we've made commitments. So, you know, like in my personal ethics, I could not be the head of sustainability

that was not going anywhere, right? And I just need to feel that we are being true to ourselves, that we're putting commitments out there that we need to be able to reach. And if there is something in the way, like I'm very pro adjusting if needed, right? Just with transparency and being able to explain why we decided to shift here or there. But I just, you know,

It is a mandate of mine to be able to have things working, that the work is going towards a goal, that it's consistent with what we say. It's just, for me, the sustainability program was a lot about putting my seed into it and making sure that it was moving in the right direction.

Mike Smith (43:47)
Why do you think you're like that? Like what about your background causes you to be like, I can't do this halfway, I've gotta like throw my heart and soul into this.

Laura Rossi (43:57)
You know, I think a lot about that because I would like to pass that on to my kids. It is the one trait that I say that and my discipline and organization skills is definitely something that has been a gift to me and I work at keeping them very, you know, I work on it very hard.

But I would say it's definitely gotta be a combination of personality because you have to have the personality. It helps to be someone who likes method, who is organized by nature. There's just some traits of the personality that help.

But I would have to go back to my parents and my school. I mean, the way that I was raised, my dad and my mom, they're both very disciplined individuals. My dad is a cardiologist and academics and ethics and discipline and organization. We're always at the core of our family. And my mom,

she has a more easygoing personality. She's extremely driven and organized as well in her own way but extremely driven and so I think that I just

had that around me and then I went to a school, same school since I was in Kinder up to high school and this school was also an environment where discipline was promoted and encouraged and taught. So I would say that's where this comes from.

Mike Smith (45:26)
I got a little emotional when you started talking about your kids. I started thinking about my own as well and about like how that's like something I would like to pass on to them as well is about like how discipline and service to others is important. And yeah, so I think we share that value there.

Laura Rossi (45:40)
Yeah.

Mike Smith (45:41)
Maybe we could talk a little bit more about climate specifically and about not in this, I mean, definitely how it relates to your own life in Amerant, but like also just more broadly, like, um, you know, what do you find exciting about working in the climate space?

Laura Rossi (45:57)
This may sound funny, but I think the one part that I find exciting about it is that it's a topic that.

Either we do something about it or the implications are going to be extremely chaotic. So for me, what is exciting is being able to contribute, right? To be part of the process, to make it to wherever we need to make it so that we find a solution. I think that this is no longer a choice. Climate, it's something that requires action.

Even though I would not consider myself a climate geek, or you would not, like any of my friends or people who know me closely, they would not necessarily say that I am the one that is out in the streets, you know, with holding banners or anything about climate change. I just feel that what is exciting about this stage or this time that we're living is the fact

that we need to find the solution and that we need to start acting. This morning I was reading something about how in order for us to reach the global net zero goals by 2050, there is really, really a hard line on 2030. That if by 2030 we're not able to make certain changes, there is no way we're reaching the goals of temperature rising by 2050.

decision or a future action for future generations. It has to happen now and it has to be, it's in our hands. So that is the one thing that I find exciting, being able to be part of that group that is driving the change.

Mike Smith (47:34)
Yeah, we all have our part to do. We don't have to like, you know, barricade the streets. But it is very much, it's something that we all need to contribute to. So I love that you came to that. But it also sounds like there's some worry there. Like, I mean, like our backs are against a metaphorical wall here. You know, like, tell me about your feelings about that side of the equation.

Laura Rossi (47:53)
Yeah, and so I would say that side of the equation is just the opposite, that just as we are the ones that need to contribute, my fear is that it may already be too late, right? It is the, without being a climate geek, just as a normal person, as a resident of this world, it really scares me that it may be too late or that we may not be able to turn this Titanic ship around.

Mike Smith (48:21)
Well, you're a pretty driven gal. How do you maintain any semblance of a work-life balance with that?

Laura Rossi (48:26)
Okay, I have to say it's very difficult. It is very difficult. And I would think back to pre-pandemic times. And I do remember feeling that there wasn't enough time to do it all, at least not to do it like I wanted to do it, right? You know, I wanted to be, I wanted to excel as a mom. I wanted to excel as a wife. I wanted to excel at work. I wanted to excel as a friend, right? And it almost feels, or it almost felt

a rat race because there was just not enough time and there was not enough you. But I would have to say that this is the one thing that I can rescue from the pandemic to be a net positive. I think that the fact that the world realized that remote work could be done and it could work and people could be efficient and I definitely say it's not for everyone,

every personality and not every type of job but in my case the my role and the way that I work and my personality really I work well in that environment again because of what we discussed I am very organized very self-driven and I don't really need you know much outside a span of control to get things done so I think that I think that has helped me a lot to reach some

balance. I feel that by being able to schedule myself and visualize my week and be at the place that is most convenient so that I give priority to this thing that is not unlimited which is time. And so, you know, the days that I need to be closer to either home or school because I have things in that area, I, you know, I stay and work remote. I am super efficient in my work, but I also use the time better, not spending in commuting.

or trying to reach different places around town. And then the days that I need to be here in the office because I have in-person meetings, because I need to interact, because I need that personal touch and feedback, then I am here. So I would definitely link my balance, work and life balance today to the fact that we're

able to do remote work and be flexible with our locations

Mike Smith (50:49)
Got it. Yeah, the challenges of being a working parent are significant it sounds like you carry it off well. It's not something I always do particularly well.

That would be great. So, well, just to wrap up here then. So this has been an interview with Laura Rossi, the Senior Vice President for Investor Relations and wearing also the hat of sustainability for Amerant Bank, the leading community bank for South Florida and the Houston area. We direct you all to their website if you'd like to learn more. And if you're looking for a bank, strongly consider them. Laura, I've really enjoyed speaking with you. I...

Laura Rossi (51:23)
Thank you.

Mike Smith (51:25)
I've really enjoyed knowing you, and I really enjoy working with Amerant. So thank you for taking the time today.

Laura Rossi (51:29)
No, you're very welcome. We enjoy talking to you always. We always learn something from your experience and your knowledge in this area. And we're very happy to work with Aclymate as a partner. So thank you so

Mike Smith (51:42)
.

Mike Smith (51:46)
She's awesome, isn't she? Think about joining a community bank like Amerant and supporting good people like Laura that do the important work that they do. Anyways, I want to hear from you. Go to Aclymate .com or send an email to TheClimateDad@Aclymate.com to submit a question for me and or the show. As a reminder, Aclymate is spelled A -C -L -Y -M -A -T -E. So again, that's TheClimateDad@Aclymate.com. Thanks to Laura Rossi for joining me and thank you all for listening. I'll be back next time with a breakdown of all things climate and with another guest.

Make sure to subscribe to The Climate Dad where you get your podcasts and to share, like and comment on social media. I'm Mike Smith and this was The Climate Dad.

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