Heather Zichal, JP Morgan Chase Global Head of Sustainability, on No Sacred Cows in Sustainable Investing

What does the retreat from global climate initiatives mean and how are investors are still driving the energy transition outside of them? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Heather Zichal, JP Morgan Chase Global Head of Sustainability, about the role of finance in addressing climate change; why an increasing emphasis on climate adaptation makes sense; and how JP Morgan Chase is capacity-building in the sustainability space.

Recording date: 05 September 2025

Heather Zichal

Heather Zichal is Global Head of Sustainability at JP Morgan Chase, where she leads the firm's global sustainability initiatives and climate finance strategies. Before joining JP Morgan, she served as Deputy Assistant to President Obama for Energy and Climate Change, playing a pivotal role in developing landmark environmental policies including the Clean Power Plan and Paris Climate Agreement negotiations. Heather brings extensive experience in public-private partnerships for clean energy development and she’s been instrumental in advancing corporate sustainability frameworks.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcription was generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. As a part of this process, this transcript has also been edited for clarity.

Jason Mitchell:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast, and I hope everyone sustained. Well, so are heads of sustainability becoming an endangered species? Look, I know it's a slightly provocative question, but in all seriousness, five years ago it was one of the fastest growing corporate roles and now it's one that's, I guess I'd call it highly pressurised and scrutinised certainly by the politics of our time, but that doesn't make the role any less important or one that investors can afford to ignore. In fact, the stakes have only grown across markets, insurance, financing, regulation, and how we think about risk itself. So a frank conversation about what the role, importance and purpose of sustainability looks like today with one of the largest banks in the world is in my mind one well worth having. And it's why it's great to have Heather Zeel a veteran climate policy strategist and top climate advisor in the Obama White House on the podcast.

Jason Mitchell:

In fact, in an earlier life when I was a portfolio manager, I remember meeting Heather in the White House to discuss US energy policy, which makes this a bit of a full circle moment for me over the last 12 years. We talk about the role of finance and addressing climate change, why an increasing emphasis on climate adaptation makes sense, and how JP Morgan Chase's capacity building in the sustainability space. We also talk about what the retreat from Global Climate Initiatives means and why some investors are still driving the energy transition outside of them. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the answers to a lot of these questions are a lot more complicated than headlines may suggest. Heather is global head of sustainability at JP Morgan Chase, where she leads the firm's global sustainability initiatives and climate finance strategies. Before joining JP Morgan, she served as deputy assistant to President Obama for energy and climate change, playing a pivotal role in developing landmark environmental policies, including the Clean Power Plan and Paris Climate Agreement negotiations. Heather brings extensive experience in public private partnerships for clean energy development, and she's been instrumental in advancing corporate sustainability frameworks. Welcome to the podcast, Heather Zekel. It's great to have you here, and thank you for taking the time today.

Heather Zichal:

Thank you. I'm excited for this conversation.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, that's great to hear. Incidentally, I don't think you'll ever remember, but I actually managed to track down a group meeting I had with you in the White House alongside a bunch of other portfolio managers, and this is back in June, 2012 covering the Clean power plan work you were doing then. So I'm really looking forward to this discussion.

Heather Zichal:

Likewise.

Jason Mitchell:

Great. So let's start out with some level setting. There's this ongoing debate about the exact role and efficacy of the finance industry when it comes to addressing climate change relative to government, legislative and regulatory action. With the rise of G fans, it felt at one point like finance was going to try and save the world. Now the common refrain is that it's the government's responsibility. And so given your experience on both the policy and finance fronts, what do you think financial actors who are obviously bound by fiduciary duty, what do you think they can actually do if they can't actively try to bring about a climate trajectory that's different from one supported by government policy? I guess if investors can't drive climate outcomes, how can they influence the environment to drive climate outcomes?

Heather Zichal:

Well, that's a great question. To get us started today, look at a very basic level. Sustainable investing has a key role to play in delivering investment objectives that investors are seeking, but it was never really going to engineer real economy decarbonization outcomes on its own. So for a lot of our clients achieving their goals includes investing in alignment with their values. We are obviously more than happy to help them do that. Some clients ask us to help manage risk and capture opportunities related to the low carbon transition. Some want more exposure to transition themes, others want to align their portfolios with a net zero pathway and still others want to achieve impact or sustainable outcomes in addition to financial return. So it really depends on the client, but most investors at the end of the day are looking for returns above everything else. Our job at JP Morgan Chase is to provide them with the choices.

Heather Zichal:

It's not to engineer any specific decarbonization outcome with our investments. And I really think that brings us back to your question about the role of the finance industry. Our own approach is based on our role as a fiduciary, helping our clients navigate investment risks and opportunities with an eye to securing long-term returns in their portfolios. For a long time, people would tout disclosure as the way to scale capital flows, which I mean candidly, from my perspective, never made a whole lot of sense. If we really want to make serious progress on decarbonization, it needs to be the most economic option to move the needle at scale. We need to focus on clearing red tape, bringing down costs and shortening lead times. That's a complicated multi-stakeholder effort. No one entity, not even JP Morgan as the world's largest bank, can get that done on their own. So that's why I try to spend a lot of time working with the people that can help get that done, our clients, investors, and of course, to your point makers.

Jason Mitchell:

Got it. Yeah. So there's a clear utility in the notion of the approach around sustainable investing, but at the same time we've seen a pretty significant retreat from climate commitments across corporate America from asset managers leaving climate initiatives to companies rolling back their targets. How do you think about this? How do you reconcile and explain away this rollback first?

Heather Zichal:

Well, look, I think a, a significant rollback is it might be a bit of an overstatement. I kind of think about it more as a recalibration, and honestly, that's fine and that's healthy. 10 year climate targets, we're never going to be like, let's set this thing and forget it. The world changes fast and these goals are ambitious. So at JP Morgan Chase, for example, we set our first targets in 2021, and even if you just think about the world since 2021, a lot has changed. So you've got AI ignited, massive unanticipated load growth. Interest rates went from basically zero to 4%. The policy environment has proven susceptible to large swings, and some countries have implemented significant demand incentives, carbon pricing and other policies that are supporting investment in the energy transition. But still no government in the world has comprehensive policies and actions that fully align with meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So we've changed our approach a few times since then, including our energy mix target and our energy supply financing ratio. We may very well need to change our approach again in the future. And again, that's okay because two things remain true. One, our North star isn't going to change. We have a commercial interest in unlocking these opportunities and we clearly see the risks of a warming world, and two, we're going to be transparent about what our approach is if we have and if we have changed anything, we'll make it very clear why we have.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, I think this is a really good point. This is a theme that I've touched on with previous episodes just around I guess the need for pressure valves in this decarbonization journey. For instance, one of the previous podcasts I had was with former assistant secretary for nuclear energy, Katie Huff, who sort of talked about, you pointed to it sort of the sudden growth in hyperscalers and the pull on energy demand and how that's to some degree changed the trajectories we thought about a decade ago. But I guess coming back to my question, politics is an obvious factor, but that doesn't seem to have stopped, interestingly, internal efforts, whether it's decarbonization or stewardship programmes, particularly with the big banks from continuing independent of these big climate international alliances. And so I go back, you've kind of partly answered it, but I kind of want to press you a little bit more on this. Are we facing a reset, a recalibration or a retreat specifically from net zero?

Heather Zichal:

Well, I mean, I think let's level set a little bit. So there's been a lot of talk about the net zero banking alliance and the activities around that, and I think that's a good area to explore because it is membership organisation. There've been a lot of questions about are firms fully committed? What's really happening? Has everyone just kind of stepped away from net zero? But as the editor in chief at the Responsible Investor recently put it in an op-ed, there's no reason to treat net zero alliances as sacred cows. And that evolution by banks as it relates to our own specific approach is natural and desirable. So again, this sort of gets back to this previous point about setting a strategy and forgetting it. You don't do that in life. You're constantly looking at key inputs and making evaluations and changing strategies when and where you need to. And I think from our firm's perspective, we've got our strategy, we set our strategy, and we're being very clear and transparent about what we're doing. We have not retreated from the important work that we're doing, but at the same time, we are recognising we as JP Morgan Chase cannot solve the climate challenge alone. It's going to take public policy, it's going to take actors at the federal, state and local level working hand in hand to solve this major challenge.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. I want to dig a little bit more into the implications of this. I mean, does it effectively mean that we now exist in, I guess in international relations speaking kind of a self-help system with no overarching authority or how do we sort of build support systems around best practises, et cetera? What do you start to point to absent the existence of these alliances?

Heather Zichal:

Well, you mentioned overarching authority, but it's honestly a bit of a head scratcher to me that many have come to the conclusion that if you're not a member of an organisation like the Net Zero Banking Alliance, you're somehow not living up to your commitment. And I can tell you unequivocally, from our firm's perspective, there are no implications because our business strategy is the same. So from my perspective, you should judge us on our actions. And again, to turn back the clock, we set our targets before we joined NDBA and we still have them until NDBA was in the press on a regular basis. It wasn't even a factor in how we made decisions when it was set up as the financial services industry was figuring it out. The industry was exploring things like how do we even set targets? What data do we use? Which scenarios are the right ones to focus on?

Heather Zichal:

So it really made some sense to get some context and different perspectives and bring people together to try and solve these challenges. But just because it was a good idea in year one doesn't mean it's a good idea in perpetuity. So needs are going to change over time, and that's reflected over the evolution of G fans. So we in the meantime continue to work independently to advance the interests of our firm, our shareholders, and our clients, and we're focused on pragmatic solutions to help further low carbon technologies while at the same time advancing energy security. So I guess I would say look at what we're doing and judge us by the decisions that we're making, not by whether we are a member of one organisation or another.

Jason Mitchell:

Where do you see the silver lining in all of this, both from a public policy perspective and for the private sector?

Heather Zichal:

I'll take that question in two parts. When it comes to the private sector, it's not just a silver lining. My sentiment is more resilient. We remain optimistic in the long-term outlook for low carbon energy in the us the world, if you look at it, the world needs more energy than ever. So we've got renewables, batteries, and other solutions that are cheap and fast to build. For example, solar will account for more than half of all new utility scale power projects in the US this year, and that's according to an energy department projection. Those solutions, renewables, batteries, they create jobs and drive much needed community investment. So the commercial case for renewables is still really clear. On the flip side of that, natural gas turbines have a three plus year backlog. So if we want power now and aren't already in line for a turbine, a practical option in the near term is probably renewables and storage separately.

Heather Zichal:

On the policy side, we continue to see a divergence with the US and the rest of the world, but I'm actually heartened everywhere by a shift from a focus on things like disclosure to a more pragmatic conversation about what is actually going to move the needle on decarbonization. So what I mean by that is disclosures taxonomies transition plans, they can provide information to the market and help investors make informed decisions, but they're not fundamentally changing the economic conditions necessary for real economy transition. For example, transition plans can absolutely outline a company's approach to achieving targets, but they don't guarantee the delivery of those plans and they don't create the necessary enabling conditions for finance to facilitate transition activity. So what really moves the needle at the end of the day is the necessary economic conditions such as government policy, infrastructure development, and consumer demand.

Jason Mitchell:

So we've seen a pretty big expansion, at least internationally around the notion of materiality in Europe. It's expanded from financial materiality to double materiality over the last, let's say five to 10 years. But I guess let's say on a scale of one to 10, how much should sustainable investing be linked to financial materiality? Look, I'm assuming it's high, but if that's the case, what's the best way to measure that materiality and how do you put past relationships into context with what's likely to happen in the future? Our own prior is that the future is going to look very different, more extreme weather, different demographics, et cetera, and evaluating that going forward, it's going to be more difficult. But how do you think about this line of thinking?

Heather Zichal:

It's a great question, and I think the best way for me to answer that is to kind of talk about how we approach sustainable investing at JP Morgan Chase. At the end of the day, everything is about financial materiality as we are seeking the best risk return outcomes for our clients, incorporating sustainability. So if a client has a specific sustainability target tailor the investment strategy to meet their objectives, but generally we're still looking to help them meet their goals while maximising risk return outcomes. In terms of the future looking different and impacting returns, you're absolutely a thousand percent right that the past is not a prologue. We can't really count on historical assumptions into the future because physics is telling us that climate is changing. A body of data shows financial risk is growing along with the probability and magnitude of extreme weather events. In other words, the future risks of climate change are now finding the bottom line in the present. As researchers like our own Dr. Sarah Koepnick are beginning to document, there may be a financial return potential to thinking of adaptation in a strategic investment context as an opportunity that can yield financial benefits over time.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, I definitely want to come back to that in a little bit. I'm a big fan of Dr. Sarah Knick and her work and congrats to getting her to return to JP Morgan. But I guess before that, decarbonization has been a pretty foundational element of climate conscious financing and investment strategies, but under an administration increasingly favouring traditional energy sources. I think we both agree with that. How do banks derive decarbonization initiatives going forward? I guess what I'm asking is how do you see the current political climate reshaping how financial institutions prioritise clean energy investments?

Heather Zichal:

We have never made decisions based on politics, especially not when it comes to how we deal with our clients. That's not a good way to run a bank and not how JP Morgan Chase has become the firm it has today. What's clear today is that the world needs more energy. The energy our clients deploy will be primarily shaped by four forces. Price, reliability, speed and emissions profile. No source of energy is perfect on all four. So you'll see everyone with a mix of electricity generation, natural gas is reliable, but there's a three-year backlog on turbines. As we were talking about. Nuclear is reliable, but it's expensive and takes years to build. Wind and solar are cheap and fast build, but they're intermittent policy influence can put its finger on the scales here, but investment decisions are always going to be shaped primarily by commercial factors.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, as decarbonization efforts have increasingly become politicised, climate adaptation, I think it's fair to say, seems to be gaining traction. You talked about it a little bit before, but I think there's a huge opportunity to look at the relationship between different kinds of physical risks, extreme heat, extreme precipitation for instance, and asset pricing. And I don't think a lot of the market outside of the insurance industry is doing that, but how are you seeing corporates balancing, let's say, legacy decarbonization commitments with the urgency around climate adaptation? Adaptation is more pragmatic and less politically charged, but critics have said it to some degree, represents kind of a capitulation relative to the carbon mitigation side.

Heather Zichal:

Well, first I'd say we can do multiple things at once. Mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand. So while reducing emissions remains essential, the impacts of a warming world are here today and the science tells us it's going to get hotter, sea levels will rise, and disasters will get more severe and more frequent physical risks. So heat flooding, supply chain disruptions, they are material today and are directly affecting asset values, operating costs, and business continuity. That's true even if we were on track for 1.5 degrees C of warming. So we can reduce the human and economic costs of these events by investing in resilient solutions today and integrating mitigation and adaptation strategies can also help protect employee productivity, build resilience into operations, and reduce insurance and financing costs. In other words, there's a balance between protecting near-term operations and positioning businesses for long-term returns in a changing economy. That's really why our clients are increasingly looking to us for advice on adaptation and resilience, particularly as they do longer term planning.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. How are you capacity building in the climate adaptation space? You talked about Dr. Sarah Kanick, that's a huge win, former Noah, chief scientist and her return to JP Morgan in what seems like a pretty big emphasis on physical risks, adaptation insurance markets. How do you see this evolving for JP Morgan?

Heather Zichal:

We're working every day to figure out how we can help our clients understand risks and opportunities around climate adaptation. There are on the ground investments and there are systems challenges on the ground. This will look different everywhere you go. Houston is going to need stormwater infrastructure. Los Angeles is going to be in need of home hardening. Seattle is going to need air conditioning. So for system changes, the first one in my mind is home insurance. This is a complicated issue that's going to take a lot of hands to solve. If I had a solution for you, I'd be talking to you live from a state capital somewhere, but we are scrubbing in to see where we can help. Earlier this year actually, I took a trip to Sacramento to meet with policymakers, offer our perspective at JP Morgan Chase and understand really what are the things that we can do to play a helpful role. I say I learned a lot. There's no silver bullet solutions and there's certainly a lot of work left to do, but we are definitely ready to roll up our sleeves and help where we can.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. In the podcast, I'd recorded with Dr. Kaepernick when she was at noaa, and in all fairness, when she was a scientist, I asked her about the finance industry and its sort of preparedness in the climate adaptation space, and she replied with a C or below in terms of its ability to understand and price climate risk. And I guess given you've got a particularly powerful perspective through the lens of policy finance, think tanks and philanthropic work that you do, I mean, do you think that's a fair assessment?

Heather Zichal:

(21:59): Well, I tend to leave the grading to the academics, Jason, but I think Sarah's grade is probably about right, but that doesn't mean there isn't an important work for us to do, and I'm really focused on what we can do to bring that grade up. And I'd say we're working every day to figure out what more we can do, how we engage with our clients, how we engage with regulators and policymakers, and that's certainly a top priority for me.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, I guess, and to be clear, I mean that wasn't Mark against JP Morgan, it was more about the industry and to me, it's sort of interesting that JP Morgan has really sort of come out in a much more visible way and invested in what seems to be data resources, talent in this area in a way that many other big banks. How would you sort of explain that away? Is it a cultural shift? Does it reflect the current competencies or priorities within the firm? How would you talk about it?

Heather Zichal:

Well, I mean, I think at a very basic level, I mean, we go where the market goes and we make sure that internally we have the expertise to meet our clients where they are. So at a very basic level, I think, I mean, I'd love to tell you there was some magic sauce behind it, but the reality is the market is evolving. This is a very complicated issue, both when you think about opportunities and how you manage risks for a very large bank. So we're building the expertise because we have to at a very basic level.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. Well, I mean, credit to you guys, transition finance is pretty central to the clean energy shift, yet there are systemic barriers such as the missing middle financing gap, which still persist. In fact, you've written that companies often face these mismatches in risk return profiles as they scale from lab proven technologies to commercial deployment. How do you see the stakes changing now that many of the IRA incentives are phasing out specifically the DOE loan programmes office, which sat between venture capital VCs who don't have the scale, and banks who generally don't have the lending risk appetite. It sort of reminds me, I had this discussion with Jigar Shaw on the podcast last year to talk about this, but is the financing gulf between VCs and banks for climate solutions, is it that wide?

Heather Zichal:

So VC and bank finance really are two different animals. I wish the IRA closed that gap, but I wrote that piece when the IRA was in place. Of course, loan guarantees can help, but they didn't solve the problem at scale. The bottom line, significant global investment and deployment and energy, including renewable capacity, remains the base case despite a potential slowdown in the us. So I think the conversation now is going to come back to bankability for these projects. While we don't have all the answers, we are really working hard to engage with our clients and we'll continue to identify solutions where and when we see them

Jason Mitchell:

With federal tax credits. Now under pressure, what does financing scalable climate solutions really mean now across different technologies like hydrogen carbon capture and advanced storage systems? How do you think about the technologies to prioritise from a funding perspective? I was going to say, I go back, I know the IEA has something called a technology readiness level TRLs that talk about the commercialisation and scalability levels across different technologies, but how do you guys prioritise the opportunity set?

Heather Zichal:

At a really basic level, we want to be a bank for everyone. So we provide advice and financing solutions to clients based on their objectives. Of course, now for our clients who relied heavily on tax credits, that's become harder. But we aren't Fairweather friends. We've got the best bankers in the world, and we're going to work with our clients to try to get them the advice and capital they need however we can.

Jason Mitchell:

What kind of alternative financing mechanisms can fill the gap if federal incentives start to really get phased out? The market always likes to talk about financial innovation, particularly in the sustainability space. Is there anything we can look forward to?

Heather Zichal:

I would be the most popular person in this firm if I had a slam dunk answer for that. But look, I think just in the same way as policies are evolving and we're understanding the very complicated climate in which we are operating, I think we're going to continue to evolve with our clients. And while I can't tell you I have the perfect solution today, we are very focused on making sure we are able to unlock capital, that we remain nimble, and we're working with our clients to come up with those new innovative solutions when and where needed.

Jason Mitchell:

I understand you've talked in the past about how swings in the political and policy environment create significant uncertainty, which kind of makes it difficult for businesses to navigate, which obviously makes sense. But even if you stay optimistic about the long-term outlook for renewables, how do big banks like JP Morgan address short-term market volatility and insulate clean energy projects from these cycles? I guess what's all that mean in practise?

Heather Zichal:

Well, it's an interesting question. Most of our clients are planning projects on a multi-decade basis. So we're looking at balance sheet for the next 10 to 15 years. Investment horizons are not based on presidential cycles, and clients are trying to consider how they can maintain a strategic competitive advantage with a volatile political environment. So of course, market volatility isn't only driven by politics. Energy markets are known to swing so off-take agreements can help manage some of that volatility and help us extend more capital at lower cost. So I think that's a really interesting example of how these pieces come together.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. I guess going back to my mention of a meeting, which I'm sure you don't remember many, many, many years ago, but the Clean Power Plan was, in my mind, obviously a victim of shifting policy agendas across different electoral cycles in the Supreme Court state obviously didn't help in I think it was 2015 or 2016, but what lessons did that process teach you about designing policies and strategies that are resilient enough to withstand political volatility?

Heather Zichal:

Well, look, again, you've honed in on the toughest of the questions, Jason, so congratulations to you. So again, I wish that there was a simple answer to this, but I think we're kind of in an explored territory here. I mean, as I think about the future, what's interesting about the Clean Power Plan is that that was an attempt in the Obama administration to use existing authorities under the Clean Air Act to put a policy in place to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. You fast forward, there was a court intervention, there was a change in administration, so things significantly changed. That regulation and the attempt to use existing authorities didn't end up playing out. So fast forward to the Biden administration and there was a real focus on, alright, so using existing authorities within an administration isn't the right play. We are going to work with Congress to figure out what we can do.

Heather Zichal:

And that ended up, the end result of that was the Inflation reduction Act, which was candidly a lot of industrial policy through the tax code, and you wouldn't have necessarily seen something like the Inflation Reduction Act coming 10 years ago or 15 years ago when I was working in the White House. So I think the lesson to be learned here is that you can't today sit here and write the script for how this is going to play out because there's just too many puts and takes. You've got politics, you've got an evolving market, you've got America experiencing climate change in different ways and having different reactions to that practical reality. So I think, I guess the basic lesson to be learned is that everyone has to be and remain nimble because while there's a lot of focus on what we can do collectively to address climate change, how the script plays out and what this looks like over time is really, really hard to predict.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah, it absolutely is. And I guess I'm sort of voicing that question from being located in London. I speak to a lot of our own kind of clients and investors out there, and I'm often asked how can the private sector, especially financial institutions structure as well as manage their climate conscious investments, not just to compliment, but also obviously endure policies when governments change course.

Heather Zichal:

Yeah, I mean, look, and it's a tough question to answer and there's not a perfect answer. I mean, I think the most important thing in this space right now is, as I said, remain nimble, try new things, don't be afraid to fail. And importantly, a lot of these solutions cannot come from, they're not going to just come from the financial services sector. They're not just going to come from one government. It is going to take everybody working together collectively and candidly. I think that's part of the biggest challenge.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. So how do you think about, and we're seeing a small but growing cohort on the investment side of international asset owners, there've been several in the Netherlands. There's been one or two in the UK that are undergoing pretty significant capital reallocation strategies because of specific preferences around it might be sort of an expectation that investors remain in a net zero alliance or climate action 100 or are doing certain things, and some of those might be conflictual with the norms and practises currently within the United States. I mean, how do you think about finding the balance between the domestic pressures, let's say, and the international pressures particularly around responsible investment?

Heather Zichal:

Yeah, I mean, look, it's an excellent question and something we deal with every day balancing getting the right balance between the US and EU markets is certainly not for the faint of heart. But to your point, we operate in over a hundred markets. We are very clear about the rules and the desires of our clients in those markets, and we focus on delivering. I'd like to tell you the direction of travel, I think is about the diverging markets between the US and the uk, that it was going to become easier before it got harder. But I don't think that's currently the trajectory that we're on. And obviously we are working across the board to make sure we're delivering for our clients, and we recognise that they're very different markets and we're catering to our clients and meeting them where they are.

Jason Mitchell:

No, that's super interesting. I guess, are there a couple things, maybe two or three things that you are really keeping your eye on that could have big implications, big rubber repercussions across the space? In my mind, for instance, there's the endangerment finding that the EPA in the US looks to retest, which could be pretty impactful.

Heather Zichal:

Yeah, excellent point and great question. I mean, the candid answer is with the current environment in the us, the list of things that I'm tracking is multiple pages long, but the endangerment finding is a particularly good and important thing to note the question about whether or not greenhouse gases in danger, public health and welfare is at the heart of a lot of key questions and regulations that are going to impact markets and candidly impact our clients. And the endangerment finding itself interestingly, is at the heart of the regulation of tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. And obviously as JP Morgan Chase, we have a lot of clients in the auto industry and how they're regulated is something that they care deeply about. So we care deeply about that as well. But it is a very robust area right now with the court system. And so tracking Supreme Court decisions on a number of cases is certainly something that we're doing. But outside of what's happening in the courts, there are important decisions that this administration is still looking to make, including on implementation of the inflation reduction Act and how do they define foreign entities of concern. So there's a lot of really under down the rabbit hole, a lot of nitty gritty questions and issues that we're following on a day-to-day basis that are going to have impacts for our clients, for the firm and for investors across the board.

Jason Mitchell:

No, that's actually super interesting. In fact, I actually just wanted to finish off with maybe a question related to that, but maybe also tied to the earlier question around silver linings. Kind of what kind of opportunities is the demand growth and power generation starting to open up? And I think within the US, to be clear, would point to nuclear as a result of the growth in hyperscalers. I saw, for instance, that JP Morgan facilitated the Constellation Energy's 26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine Corporation, which is created in a portfolio that includes nuclear, geothermal, and natural gas. And you've also got major tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon pioneering clean energy models by investing in nuclear power, whether it's through Amazon's half a billion commitment to advanced Nuclear Energy X Energy, or Microsoft's 20 year deal with Three Mile Island. So when you think about the demand being driven by AI and hyperscale data centres, how do you think about nuclear power's role meeting these particularly in balancing scalability, reliability, and sustainability?

Heather Zichal:

Well, as we were talking about earlier, expected low growth in the US right now is unprecedented. So you couple that with ageing infrastructure, supply chain delays, permitting challenges. We've got a massive challenge, but I'd also say that creates new and exciting opportunities, including on nuclear. So not long ago, I would've thought it farfetched that the TVA would be permitting a small modular reactor, and that three mile island would be turned back on. But here we are. So I'm bullish on nuclear. There's a real demand for zero carbon base load power today, and there are relatively few places to get it. So we're working every day to find ways we can support it to scale. And that definitely includes large scale and even some fusion companies. Where will the industry go from here? It's hard to say. We're definitely at a turning point, but if this nuclear renaissance is going to be a reality, it's going to take a lot of collaboration from the public and private sector to reduce cost and speeds deployment. So as I said, I'm bullish. I think this is an exciting new opportunity globally, and obviously excited to be here at JP Morgan Chase while we're facilitating these important investments.

Jason Mitchell:

Great. I mean, that's a great way to end. So it's been fascinating to discuss how to think about the role of finance in addressing climate change, why an increasing emphasis on climate adaptation makes sense, and how JP Morgan Chase's capacity building in the sustainability space. So I'd really like to thank you for your time and insights. I'm Jason Mitchell, head of Responsible Investment Research at Man Group here today with Heather Zeel, global Head of Sustainability at JP Morgan Chase. Many thanks for joining us on a sustainable future, and I hope you'll join us on our next podcast episode. Heather, thanks so much for this. This has been a great discussion.

Heather Zichal:

Thank you. Bye.