The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to significantly increase over this decade and will increasingly touch all our lives, whether as individual citizens, employees, or consumers.

As highlighted by ACCA’s recent report "Ethics for sustainable AI adoption: connecting AI and ESG", accountancy and finance professionals have a key role to ensure that AI adoption happens in an ethical manner, that will yield equitably distributed sustainable long-term benefits, and should consider new AI solutions as part of their toolkit to challenge ‘greenwashing’.

As sustainability and ESG reporting standards evolve, AI has the potential to play an outsized role in helping organizations understand, track, and disclose a series of key metrics including carbon emissions that support both green and broader sustainability credentials.

ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and EY are thus delighted to invite you to a lively session to look at AI through an ESG lens, and discuss questions such as: how can AI be used to advance research about our rapidly changing planet? How can we make sure that AI contributes to a just and safe operating space, and help us understand and address urgent social environmental and ethical challenges? What type of regulatory insight and oversight for AI-based technologies do we need to ensure transparency, safety, and ethical standards, while not hampering innovation? How can looking at AI through an ESG lens help us understand and categorize AI ESG risks and opportunities? What are the synergies between methods for AI risk assessment and ESG risk assessment methods?

Programme

Welcome speech by Narayanan Vaidyanathan, Head of Business Insights, ACCA

Keynote address by Eva Kaili, MEP and Chair of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), European Parliament

Panel moderated by Monica Dimitracopoulos, Global Long-Term Value Leader, EY
• Maikki Sipinen, Policy Officer, Artificial Intelligence Policy Development and Coordination, DG
CONNECT, European Commission
• Marianne Haarh, Executive Director, Green Digital Finance Alliance
• Christine Chow, Head of Stewardship and Engagement, HSBC Asset Management

Q&As

Keynote address by Brando Benifei, MEP and Member of AIDA Special Committee, European Parliament

Concluding remarks by Andrew Hobbs, EMEIA Public Policy Leader, EY

END