David Harris has been made group head of sustainable business at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in a newly created role.
He will be responsible for ensuring that sustainability is included into the LSE’s activities at a group level. Harris is remaining as the director of environmental and social governance (ESG) at FTSE Russell, itself a member of the LSE group. It is hoped that this will give him a platform for developing an integrated strategy to include sustainability and green finance into products and services.
Harris has 15 years experience working in responsible investment and sustainability. He was vice-chair of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association between 2012 and 2015. He was on the advisory committees for both the United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Investment and the European Sustainable Investment Forum and last year chaired the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange’s Working Group to develop model ESG reporting guidance for exchanges globally.
While at FTSE Russell, Harris managed products including the FTSE4Good, FTSE Environmental Markets, and the FTSE ESG Ratings.
In a statement from the LSE, it said: “This is an area of growing importance for the Group and David’s appointment is testament to LSEG’s [London Stock Exchange Group] ambition to lead in this field and support its clients; companies, investors and intermediaries and the wider market in integrating sustainability into global capital markets.”
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