Across the world, businesses are ramping up their efforts to cut their carbon and become more sustainable corporate citizens. 

But despite these efforts, they’re failing to take advantage of one of the most powerful tools at their disposal – their workplace pensions. That means the billions invested through them each year often remain misaligned with this vision, undoing all their good work. 

Join Richard Curtis, filmmaker and co-founder of sustainable finance campaign Make My Money Matter, and business guru Deborah Meaden to discuss the campaign’s brand new research showing why pensions are any CEO’s hidden superpower to change the world.

Presented in collaboration with Make My Money Matter and the Financial Times.

Speakers:

Richard Curtis is a film writer and director, responsible for films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Mr Bean, Love Actually, The Boat That Rocked, and most recently Trash, About Time and Yesterday.

In the other half of Richard’s life he is co-founder and vice-chair of Comic Relief, which he started after visiting Ethiopia during the 1985 famine and led to the fundraising event, Red Nose Day. He has co-produced the 16 live nights for the BBC since 1988 and the charity has made over £1.3 Billion for projects in the UK and internationally during that time. In 2015, he helped bring Red Nose Day to the United States with the partnership of NBC and Walgreens – where it has so far raised nearly $150 million to help children in the USA and round the world.

Richard was a founding member of Make Poverty History, the campaign for the MDGs and worked both on that and on Live 8 in 2005.  In 2015 he helped found Project Everyone to work to make the Global Goals famous and effective – and is now a UN Advocate for the SDGs.

In 2020, Richard is co-founded Make My Money Matter, a people powered sustainable finance campaign fighting for a world where we all know where our money goes, and where we can demand it’s invested to build a better future.

Deborah Meaden is a business leader, investor, TV personality and writer, well known for her appearances on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den.

Deborah launched her own glass and ceramics export company straight out of Business College and then went on to set up one of the first Stefanel fashion franchises in the UK.  With several successful businesses in the leisure and retail sector under her belt, Deborah became Managing Director of the holiday park business Westar Holidays, acquired the major shareholding in a management buyout and later sold the company in a deal with Phoenix Equity Partners worth £33million whilst retaining a 23% stake.  Following this, Deborah continued to innovate and develop the company, selling her remaining shares when the business was sold to Parkdean Holidays for £83m.

Deborah first appeared on Dragon’s Den in Series 3 and is known for her environmental and ethical focus as well as being a shrewd and reasonable Dragon.  The show has led her to invest and advise in all manner of businesses leading to a wide-ranging portfolio covering a variety of sectors from research and fashion to DIY and food. She continues to invest in businesses outside of Dragons Den and most famously saved Fox Brothers, Somerset’s oldest textile mill which now exports across the globe.

Deborah supports ethical, fair practice both in business and in life believing that taking care of the environment and wildlife is essential for our future security and wellbeing.  She is actively involved in a carefully selected group of environmental charities; is a Fellow of the WWF, a Trustee of Tusk Trust, an Ambassador for Micro-loan Foundation, Marine Conservation Society and World Horse Welfare amongst others. She has become a CIWF Compassion Visionary.

In early 2022 Deborah co-hosted the first series of The Big Green Money Show with Felicity Hannah, looking at company impact on the planet as well as how sustainability can be viewed as an opportunity or an inconvenience.