Global carbon-focused strategy to launch in the coming months

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (“LOIM”) today announces the appointment of Dr. Ruben Lubowski as Chief Carbon and Environmental Markets Strategist. The newly-created role is part of the firm’s continued strategic push to add sustainability expertise to support its holistic approach to climate transition objectives across its investment offering, including the private markets.

Based in New York, Ruben is a leading economics and policy expert on carbon markets and a pioneer in finance approaches for conservation and other natural climate solutions. He will leverage his extensive experience developing carbon markets and analysing environmental-related opportunities and risks to further develop LOIM’s range of products in the carbon and nature-based solutions space. LOIM plans to launch its first global carbon-focused strategy for private markets in the coming months.

Ruben brings 30 years of professional and academic experience to LOIM. He has held senior leadership and advisory positions with environmental organisations and investors, including most recently as Chief Natural Resource Economist and Associate Vice-President for Climate and Forests at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in New York.  He also co-founded and serves as Special Adviser to the Emergent Forest Finance Accelerator, which manages and provides the platform for the LEAF Coalition, a public-private initiative that mobilized US$1 billion to protect tropical forests last year.  Ruben has advised governments and stakeholders around the world on carbon markets design and has testified to the US Senate on the role of forest and agriculture offsets. He also serves as Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, specialising in carbon pricing and economic analysis of environmental policies. He has previously held professorship and economist roles in related fields at New York University, Harvard University, and the US Department of Agriculture.

In addition, Ruben co-authored the World Bank-ICAP handbook on emissions trading systems design, widely used by policymakers and stakeholders worldwide. He is the author of over 70 journal publications, research papers and books and has won various environmental awards and grants.

Ruben started at LOIM on Monday 4 April and reports to Dr. Lorenzo Bernasconi, Head of Climate and Environmental Solutions.

Dr. Lorenzo Bernasconi, Head of Climate and Environmental Solutions at LOIM commented: “Ruben brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise that will be invaluable to the growth of the firm’s carbon and nature-based investment offering. The carbon markets are growing and evolving rapidly, driven by the wave of both government and corporate commitments to address climate change. We see tremendous opportunities in these markets to potentially deliver strong returns and sustainability outcomes. I look forward to working with Ruben on launching a global carbon-focused strategy in the near future that will represent a compelling investment opportunity for clients.”

Jean-Pascal Porcherot, Co-Head of LOIM and Managing Partner of Lombard Odier, added:

“At LOIM we are committed to hiring industry-leading talent to further expand our sustainable investment offering with a full range of differentiated products across all asset classes, and across public and private markets. Ruben’s appointment is a true reflection of our investment convictions in sustainability and we are delighted to welcome him to the team.”

At Lombard Odier Investment Managers, we are rethinkers with one goal in mind. To provide our clients with outstanding investment solutions that meet their needs for the long term and evolve to thrive in the challenging world in which we all live. 

We are focused investment specialists, seeking out investment opportunities that lie on less trodden paths, where our diverse and talented team can add genuine, persistent, value to our clients. We constantly rethink what we know and do, innovating to create new strategies and develop new ways of investing. 

We believe that the next economic revolution has already begun and that sustainability will be a major driver of returns for the foreseeable future and beyond. For those with the skills to adapt to this new reality, sustainability will create new sources of alpha, open up new investment opportunities and lead to enhanced return and reduced portfolio risk.

Our team of sustainability experts combine sophisticated data sources, academic rigour and technical innovation to create leading-edge, science-based tools that provide unique insights that are available to all our investment professionals. 

These unique insights are reflected directly in our growing range of dedicated sustainable investment strategies that are aligned to this core belief - That our economic model must move from being Wasteful, Idle, Lopsided and Dirty to become Circular, Lean, Inclusive and Clean. We call this The CLIC™ Economy.

With more than 180 investment professionals, we are a global business with a network of 13 offices across Europe, Asia and North America and have assets under management of 67 billion CHF (as at 31 March 2022).

For more information: www.lombardodier.com

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