Episode 195: Rama Variankaval, J.P. Morgan
Today's guest is Rama Variankaval, Managing Director & Global Head of Center for Carbon Transition and Corporate Finance Advisory at J.P. Morgan.
Rama leads J.P. Morgan's Center for Carbon Transition since the group's formation in 2020. In this role, Rama is responsible for setting the strategy and implementing the firm's Climate & ESG goals as it relates to its client businesses. CCT also actively engages with existing and prospective clients to provide advisory services on their business transition related to various ESG factors.
Rama has been part of J.P. Morgan's Corporate Finance Advisory team since the group was formed in 2005 and has been leading the team on a global basis since 2017. The CFA team advises corporate clients on various topics, including capital structure, risk management, activism defense, and structured transactions. Rama was part of J.P. Morgan's internal risk management team for two years before joining the Corporate Finance Advisory group. Rama holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, India; an MS in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and an MS in Statistics and Operations Research from New York University.
I was looking forward to this discussion as JP Morgan and financial institutions play a massive role in the carbon-free future. We cover various topics, including the Center for Carbon Transition's mandate, Rama's stake in addressing climate change, and how ESG ties into decarbonization. We also discuss how externalities should be prices, our dependency on fossil fuels, and trusting corporate climate commitments. This is a must-listen episode for anyone focused on climate change and decarbonizing the future.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded January 14th, 2022
In Today's episode we cover:
An overview of the Center for Carbon Transition at JP Morgan
Rama's personal climate journey and what led him to focus on decarbonization & finance
How Rama and JP Morgan think about the massive problem of climate change and how important it is to solve it
CCT's mandate, the types of services the center offers, and who they serve
The motivations and efforts behind establishing CCT
How ESG fits into climate change and decarbonization and the path Rama took from ESG to CCT
Our financial systems and if capital with a conscience can exist in our current systems
The incentives for the market to price externalities and how externalities will be regulated
A discussion on systems-level changes rather than consumer-level changes to tackle climate change
The key blockers preventing us from tackling climate change
A discussion about how we get off fossil fuels and whether that's a good thing or not
Whether demonizing JP Morgan is justified or not regarding climate change
Why we can't get off fossil fuels immediately and what's lacking from the existing renewable energy sector
JP Morgan's role in the clean energy transition and why the firm can't push us forward
The distrust of big banks and why it's warranted
How to trust climate commitments from massive financial institutions like JP Morgan
Climate risk and how to price it in the current financial markets
A discussion on whether we're in a climate crisis or emergency and how to describe the urgency of the problem
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
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Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey, or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1300 members.
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At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website, and click the become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help. Today's guest is Rama Variankaval, the global head of the Center for Carbon Transition at JPMorgan.
I was excited for this one because JPMorgan of course is a massive financial institution. They're also the largest funder of fossil fuels. Now you can talk about whether because they're the biggest bank, it's no surprise that they're also the biggest funder of fossil fuels, it's just math. Yet they get a bunch of heat from various parts of the climate community that want them to do more to clean up their own act and to put pressure on the rest of the global economy to do the same.
Now, I was excited that Rama agreed to come on the show because I wanted to know more about this Center for Carbon Transition, when it got set up, why it got set up, what its mandate is and also just how JPMorgan is thinking about the clean energy transition. And Rama does not disappoint. We cover a lot in this episode, including his own journey, growing up running big portions of the investment bank and now working in this carbon transition role, that's interesting.
And we also talk about how JPMorgan is thinking about this transition, why they decided that now is the time to act, what kind of actions they're doing, what they're doing with their own footprint, what they're doing with their clients, what they're seeing from their clients. At any rate, I learned a lot from this one. I still do have questions, but I feel a lot more informed than I did before he came on the show and I think you will as well. Rama, welcome to the show.
Rama Variankaval: Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks for coming. And I must say you are brave to come on the- the show from a big bank. Not necessarily because you're not doing great work, but just because a big bank isn't probably the- the first guest that people would expect coming on a- a climate show. So I'm- I'm so grateful and appreciative that you're making the time and that you're willing to come on and- and share your perspective.
Rama Variankaval: Oh, great. Look, thanks for having me.
Jason Jacobs: Well, maybe for starters, just talk a bit about the Center for Carbon Transition and what it does and- and maybe a little bit of color on how it came about as well.
Rama Variankaval: Sure. Yeah. So the group itself, the Center for Carbon Transition or CCT for short, I'll stick to CCT because I keep jumping the words otherwise.
Jason Jacobs: That's good. Now, that- that'll make it much easier for me too, CCT for the rest of the discussion.
Rama Variankaval: That's right. We love acronyms at banks by the way. So the other group I actually run under the group, which is called Corporate Finance Advisory or CFA for short. Anyway, the CCT itself is only about 18 months or so old. And it was the culmination in some ways of a lot of work the firm was doing kind of in 2019, 2020 about figuring out our own strategy when it came to ESG broadly, sustainability or carbon transition, however you want to view it. And we felt the need... We had a bunch of... we continue to have a number of experts in other parts of the bank, right? In our corporate sustainability group, in our risk management group, in you know, other parts of the bank who are subject matter experts when it comes to these issues.
But we felt we needed a group that was within a line of business where we could house a lot of the- the relevant content market intelligence, right? All the other things that we normally provide to our clients, house it within the line of business, within the investment bank in my case, and to make it part of the DNA of our sales so that when our sales force, whether it's investment bankers or commercial bankers or marketers of products, et cetera, when they go talk to their clients, you know, they have full access to all developed content on this topic. So that was kind of in the thought process.
We in 2020 made a bunch of commitments which we think are pretty material for JPMorgan. One was to Paris align our financing book. The second was to either finance or facilitate $2.5 trillion of, you know, green or sustainable projects or companies over the next decade. We again, wanted to house these commitments and the accountability for these commitments within the business, as opposed to in a corporate function where it might seem like, you know, it's somebody else's problem.
So we wanted in many ways, make it kind of, you know, the problem of the people who are, you know, accountable to go sell the products of the firm to our clients, right? So those are kind of a couple of important considerations if you will, that we decided to create the CCT. And the mandate is very much a function of the catalyst, right? So our mandate is twofold. One is we, you know, implement the existing commitments we've already made, think about how we would implement it and then to constantly think about what are the commitments would actually make sense for our firm to- to put out there, right? What's reasonable, what's important, what's ambitious.
So that's one part of it. I think of that as doing the housework. And then there is the client engagement piece because at the end of the day, right? If you look at our credentials on a carbon footprint perspective, a very tiny fraction of it is kind of in a direct carbon footprint of JPMorgan Chase, right? That's- that pretty minuscule piece. It's really the attributed carbon footprint of the clients that we engage with, right? So it's, you know, our scope three, if you will.
And we want to engage with our clients. So the only way we can achieve our targets, right? And fulfill our commitments is if our clients make progress on their own journey. So that's kind of, you know, the dual mandate we have, you know, do the work for the house and then engage with clients, help them with whatever financial services we can provide to help them transition their business to a more sustainable place or a lower carbon footprint place and in turn, help us achieve our own commitments.
Jason Jacobs: Rama, maybe talk a bit about your personal journey. And I mean, one- one question I'll just ask up front, is this the first time that you've ever had carbon or decarbonization as part of your professional mandate? And- and if so, how did that come about? Where did that come from? Was it just out of the blue or is it something that you were- you were thinking about for a while?
Rama Variankaval: Sure. Yeah. Look, personal journey, you know, I am like I guess most Indians of my generation, engineer by training. Came to this country for grad school. I have graduate degrees in engineering and statistics. And candidly, I thought without really much thought to it that you know, combination of engineering statistics, I'll, you know, end up having a career in an operations research in some form of a manufacturing company. But my thesis advisor at NYU who, you know, pointed out that, "Well, you are in New York, it's the, you know, financial capital of the world. You may want to consider going and talking to some banks."
Banks, you know, were hiring at that point. This is early 2000s. Were hiring a lot of people with a bit more technical background. He said, "You may want to consider that." And so I interviewed, got a job at JPMorgan and did a couple years of internal risk management and then joined this group, the so-called CFA group, the Corporate Finance Advisory Group, was called something else at- at inception. But that group was formed in 2005 and I was a junior guy at that time. Joined the group, stayed with the group, started running the group in 2017 on a global basis. And that is a very typical banking group. Work with clients, solve their problems, right? On broad corporate finance, structured finance type- type issues.
Jason Jacobs: So that- that's like big growth financings, that's leveraged buyouts, that's M&A. Uh, am I in the right general ballpark in terms of the-
Rama Variankaval: No, those are exactly right. So those are kind of, you know, the products we sell, right? M&A, capital raising, risk management, et cetera. So trying to work with clients on those types of issues, right? And I would say it was maybe 2017, 18 timeframe when we started getting questions from our clients and we started observing this trend in the capital markets that a lot of flows were being categorized, if you will, as flows into ESG oriented investments or ESG oriented assets, right?
And our clients were rightly so curious about what that meant for their own access to capital or cost of capital or evaluation. Now these, you know, if you asked me in 2017 and 18, I would've said, "Oh, these are just corporate finance questions." You look at capital flows and think about implications on different economic activities and companies with different business models. So we so started looking at the issue from that perspective, worked with a bunch of clients. So I guess my entrée into carbon is through the broader lens of ESG.
And so I- I had some experience working with clients on those topics and as the form, JPMorgan was designing this whole strategy of how do we kind to improve our own footprint, how do we think about helping clients on this kind of decarbonization journey, it'd seemed natural that, you know, I would be asked to end up doing that, given my, you know, diversity of backgrounds working with a bunch of clients on a global scale, on a variety of issues, having some understanding of ESG, having a pretty good understanding of JPMorgan itself having been there for 20 years. So it felt like a pretty natural fit. But again, it may not seem like a more sub- you know, a very substantial experience on the topic itself, but I have, you know, reasonable experience on a lot of peripheral issues, I would say, which are relevant.
Jason Jacobs: And I'd love to dig into some of those, but maybe before I do, just to level set, it would be good to just see how you and how the firm is thinking about the macro problem of climate change. So it seems, and I mean, the caveat for me, and you probably know, my story as a member of the MCJ community is- is that I've only a few years into learning about this stuff and definitely still wet behind the ears if you will, but there's overwhelming s- scientific evidence and- and consensus, you know, that the climate is changing, that a large part of it is caused by human activities, and that essentially our entire global economy is built factoring in the externalities of, you know, of the pollution that we're pumping into the atmosphere and that we don't have a lot of time, right?
That there's, you know, kind of this short clock and that no matter what we do, things are gonna continue to get worse over the next, you know, years and- and decades to come. But in the longer term, like we still have an opportunity to ultimately lead on a path back to, you know, to harmony and- and to thriving of life on this planet. So I'll stop there. And I'm curious, you know, whether with your personal hat on, or with your JPMorgan hat on, would you agree with that existential risk? Are you aligned in terms of the- the timelines and- and the magnitude? Like how- how worried are you, you know, with your Rama hat on and how worried are you as a firm?
Rama Variankaval: I would say that everything you said was just factual, right? I don't think of that as necessarily subjective, right? And that's by the way, as a- as an individual and as a firm, right? So clearly it's an urgent issue, clearly it's an important issue, right? And the way we think about it is, you know, we as a firm have a role to play. We have, as an industry, have a role to play, right? Unlike maybe other big changes, right? In- in the world, historical changes, you know, different revolutions, right? Economic revolutions. This one especially seems highly capital intensive, right?
The, you know, again, it depends on whose estimate you want to look at, but it's pretty clear that the world will need a lot of capital to actually end up avoiding some of the, you know, catastrophes that you were- you were pointing to which puts, I think an incremental responsibility on the financial sector, right? 'Cause you know, clearly we are, as a firm, for example, we are a provider of capital.
Jason Jacobs: The largest fund of fossil fuel projects, correct?
Rama Variankaval: By some definition, yes. We are also the largest financer of many other sectors because we have a very big balance sheet, right? If you do the math, we, I think based on public numbers, about 4% of our wholesale lending is to oil and gas, but there are lots of other economic sector where that number is over 10%. But factually true. If you simply compare absolute numbers, we are the largest, right?
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. So it might be 4% of your total, but it's larger than anyone else.
Rama Variankaval: Correct. As is our balance sheet, which is larger than anyone else's, right? So science matters, math also matters, right? [Laughs]. So the- the role we have, right? As I was saying is, you know, we can direct capital to the right places, right? Our own capital obviously. But also we have a pretty good map of, you know, what other capital providers, risk preferences are and reward anticipations are, right? So I think our role is kind of to figure out the best mapping, if you will, between the capital seekers, right?
We're trying to decarbonize the world and the capital providers, right? Again, some of it will come from us. Clearly not all of it can come from us, but we can kind of create the map and then, you know, do the best possible matching of those, right? So those are the kinds of things that I spent a lot of my time thinking about and as a firm we spent a lot of time thinking about,
Jason Jacobs: I definitely wanna dig in on those topics, but since we just got some context on the macro, now maybe we can get some context on CCT. So what is the mandate of the group? How big is the group? What kind of skill sets you have on the team and what types of services are you providing and to whom?
Rama Variankaval: The group is growing fast, call it about 15 bankers globally at this moment in time. It was like 3 about 12 months back. So... And I'm- I'm- I'm pretty sure we will continue to grow, right? The way we think about it, you know, people and balance sheet are kind of two most valuable assets and we are deploying both, right? So we have... Again, I think of this as a pretty multidisciplinary problem that we are tackling. So we need experts from the capital market side, right? People who understand how the markets work and how to again, act as financially intermediaries in the most efficient way.
We need people who understand climate science, right? We need people who understand the, you know, shareholder engagement and stakeholder engagement aspects of the search so we are kind of trying to build a pretty multidisciplinary team. Again, not all of them will be housed within the CCT umbrella, right? We are folks who are... You know, we have climate scientists in our asset management practice and we have folks who come from an environmental advocacy practice within our corporate sustainability group, et cetera, right? So we are trying to bring into the firm all kinds of relevant expertise that will be, you know, needed to solve the problem.
Jason Jacobs: And what is the mandate of the group?
Rama Variankaval: Part of it is to make sure that we can implement the commitments that we have put out, right? As a firm, right? So for example, our Paris commitment, I can talk more about that, right? We are in, you know, in the process of implementing it. And the second to engage with clients, right? To... I think of our clients as largely falling into camps, right? One is those clients, many of our legacy clients whose business model has a liability, embedded liability, right? An ESG liability, a climate liability, however you wanna to think about it, right?
And most of them recognize that they have the liability, most of them recognize the need to transition away from the liability, right? 'Cause that makes sense for them. And so for that group of clients, we want to engage with them and provide again, you know, the financial tool kit we have for their benefit to help them transition. That's one group of clients that we engage with. The second group of clients are, you know, maybe newer companies, largely speaking, not all of them who have a business model that's actually part of the solution where, you know, climate is not a liability, but it's an asset, right? And so we want to engage with them.
One, we want to provide banking services to them, right? We want to be their bank of choice. Two, we also think that, you know, these solutions that these folks are providing can be for developing can be pretty useful to those legacy clients who are in need for these solutions, again, playing the role of matchmaker, right? Which again, we do as a normal course of business. So those are the types of activities that the groups mandate to do and that's what we are doing I would say on a daily basis.
Jason Jacobs: I mean, is the group a line of business? Does it have revenue and profitability targets or is it more of a call center that is serving the needs of the lines of business?
Rama Variankaval: Yeah. So we don't have a- a P&L for the group. I'm personally not a big fan of the term call center. I mean, look, everything, you know, it's- it's how you- how you build your client, right? We provide a lot of services to your client, certain things we build explicitly, certain things we don't. At the end of the day, everyone who works at the firm is... has a cost associated with them and provides a value to our client, right?
So from a very, again, tactical perspective, yeah we don't book revenue directly, but we are hoping that by providing solutions, relevant solutions to our clients who are faced with these problems, they will hopefully give JPMorgan some business in implementing those solutions, right? So it is at the end of the day part of, uh, the investment bank and is part of the... one of the many tools we want to deploy to create value for our clients which will hopefully then create value for ourselves.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. So I think if I'm hearing right, these companies that need services, they are concerned about the risk or liabilities and where the world is going and whether they will be equipped to compete in the next era, but they don't necessarily have the expertise in this area to properly assess their options and the path forward. And so by helping them in an advisory capacity, the bet that JPMorgan is making is that it will help show your value so that you can be a better partner across the portfolio of other services that the bank provides.
Rama Variankaval: Yeah. It's a fair summary.
Jason Jacobs: Why now? I mean, what is it that made... Because people have talking about climate since, I mean for decades, right? I mean, Exxon knew and the old scientists knew and lots of people knew and I mean, yeah, the symptoms are getting more visible and obvious relative to how they were, but relative to how they're gonna be, you know, in a decade or two decades, they are peanuts. So what is the compelling reason now or the forcing function, if you will, to establish this group and formalize the efforts?
Rama Variankaval: Look, it's a good question. Again, the issue of climate or, you know, the broader environmental issues or social issues or governance issues, those are clearly not new to JPMorgan, right? We have had many functions with, you know, which have focused on the issue. What is new is to start thinking of it as so core to the business that we want to create, again, a group within the line of business and try to again, make this part of our DNA, right?
Regardless of what our other banking product I'm selling to have this topic embedded as part of that, you know, sales effort, that's new thinking for sure in the last couple years. What's led to it again, I would say it's a confluence of factors, right? You know, we are participants in the financial markets. So to us, a lot of the signals cut from the financial markets, right? As I was alluding to at the beginning, right? We have been seeing now, at least for the last handful of years, lot of capital flows in the markets are being defined by these- these factors, right?
Investors are increasingly thinking about it as a relevant factor if not a primary factor in their investment decision, right? Our clients, the issuing clients on the other hand are increasingly thinking of this is part of business strategy. It used to be that maybe a few years back people thought of as, you know, sustainability strategy as to the side or independent of business strategy. Now, increasingly those things are merging, right? And so it just felt very natural for us that for our own business, we need to start merging those two things, right? What's our kind of, you know, sustainability strategy and what's our business strategy, I think they are... they seem to have merged.
Jason Jacobs: You talk about the Paris commitments and the commitments that JPMorgan's made as a firm and then you talk about client engagements and helping them navigate their own plans to reach their commitments. But you mentioned earlier in the discussion that you came at this through ESG first. Can you talk a bit about how ESG fits relative to climate change, net zero, decarbonization? Is it separate and distinct? Are they intertwined? Like how- how do they interrelate if at all, and- and how did you find your way from ESG into CCT? I just wanna understand how that threading interrelates.
Rama Variankaval: It's a good question. And, you know, candidly, my answer to that is different depending on the day of the week. There are days when I feel like this acronym of ESG is much like an acronym that was popular maybe a- a few years back called BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and somehow became a little bit of a buzzword in emerging market investing. The reality if you kind of paid attention was each of these countries and economies is quite different.
Yes, there are some commonalities, but they're quite different. And I don't think anybody with, you know, serious capital to deploy was thinking of these things as just one thing, right? If you're serious, you went and did your work on any of those individual countries economies. I think ESG, to some extent, I feel suffers from that same issue, right? I think each of these factors are quite important by themselves. Maybe if you roll the clock back, you know, a decade or so, none of them were rising to the level of importance that they deserved and hence someone thought that maybe if we club them all together, collectively, maybe you'll get the attention it- it deserves. I don't know, I'm just speculating here.
But I do feel like we are at a point where maybe the acronym has served its purpose. You know, when, again, when we go talk to other issuing clients or investing clients, folks who are very serious are thinking of it as quite distinct, right? And thinking about if I'm on the- the investor side, if I go talk to investors who have spent enough time and resources thinking about it, they're not relying on ESG as a factor, they're relying on. I have done the work, to me climate matters and here's how I think about climate as a factor impacting different business models, et cetera, right?
So I am increasingly again, by no means suggesting that social issues are not important. In fact, quite the opposite, they're quite important and we are doing it a disservice by clubbing all of these together. And you know, a lot of these assessment providers which give like, you know, hey, here's my assessment on an organization's ESG credentials. I can see that increasingly it's becoming more and more difficult. How do you balance these various issues? And is it- is it okay to be average on each of these factors or is it better to be really good on one but not- not great on the other? Is it about...
Like how do you think about these- these issues and they're so distinct. I think it's- it's a problem with the acronym, I worry. So again, pretty long winded way of saying, I think the more I think about it, the more I feel like, you know, we need to major, for me and for our group, we are majoring in kind of the E part of ESG, if you will. And even within the E to be very frank, we are majoring on the climate part of it. Obviously there are other issues. Doesn't mean though the other issues are not important, it's just that we need to kind of, you know, go deep on each as opposed to just kind of stay superficial with just a- a broad umbrella ESG.
Jason Jacobs: And this is more of a philosophical question. But one issue I have with ESG is it's almost like, oh, there's- there's this set of funds over here and that's like capital with a conscience let's say. But it's kinda off to the side and it's a small percentage of the total capital and the rest of the capital can just chase the almighty dollar and do- and do whatever it wants. I mean, do you share that worry? And- and how do you think about our overall financial system and the system of- of capitalism and how conscience does or- or should fit into it?
Rama Variankaval: I worry about that, but I also am pretty optimistic that it's a transient phase, right? Because it's very, in my mind, maybe this is too simplistic, but these are not unrelated issues, right? You know, you can't... If you- if there is a business that is creating negative externalities, right? Which again, we're not pricing explicitly today, but if you can see that, you have to realize that soon enough there will be a price on that. And they'll degrade the business model and that'll impact your investment if you're thinking of investing in the business model. So it's not a question that...
To me it's just a question of time horizons. If you're thinking of, "Oh, maybe I can kind of make a quick buck in the next three months before others realize there is a problem," maybe, right? But there are lots of other issues with short-termism in the financial markets, right? And this is not the only area. But if you have, like we do, uh, you know, a long enough time horizon, then it's almost impossible to not think of, you know, these things as really fundamental drivers of asset valuations and to take that viewpoint.
Jason Jacobs: Okay. So bear with me here, but I have a- a question in my head, and I'm gonna try to articulate it clearly. Basically you're a service provider and you have clients. And what you're telling me is that those clients don't necessarily need to operate with a conscience because the markets will take care of it because the regulation will inevitably come. If that's true and you care about the severity of the problem, then presumably you would want them to regulate sooner and bolder, but that isn't necessarily what your clients want. So how do you reconcile that tension if you're trying to do the right thing but you're a service provider?
Rama Variankaval: I would maybe rephrase it slightly. Look, the corrective mechanisms can be regulation clearly, right? And different parts of the world seem to kind of, you know, put different weight on it. Another correcting mechanism is just the markets, right? Which maybe I put a little more weight on, right? That again, if you're building a business, if you're investing in a business, whatever the case may be, for the long term, from my perspective, you say, "Well, these are things I need to put a price on," right?
I mean, eventually the market will put a price on whether or not there is regulation. We don't need to necessarily... You know, regulation, doesn't put a price on credit quality, right? The market puts a price on credit quality. And me as a lender, I can't say that, "Oh, everybody who knocks on my door asking for credit is the same." I do my analysis. I think about what the, you know, my view on credit is and then I provide a differentiated product set and a differentiated pricing, right?
So to me, and I have heard the phrase, somebody, you know, say that, you know, carbon is a new calorie, which yes, consumers seem to care about it and will increasingly care about it. But to me, the even more important realization was carbon is the new credit, right? It's a financial asset that will get priced in by the market, right? The financial markets are already showing sign of it, not perfect. But to me, that is an important trend that- that will be the correcting mechanism even in the absence of regulation. I'm not saying there should be no regulation, I'm saying the markets can play a pretty substantial role as well.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I am a terrible economist so that's the caveat here. But one point I'm having trouble understanding is if essentially there's no price on the externalities and the atmosphere is a trash dump for this pollution and you can dump as much of it as you want. And it's as if it doesn't exist, but it does have these, you know, second and third order effects that you don't necessarily care about in your own self-interest because when you put it up there, that'll be for some future generation to worry about it or some developing country, or not me in my, you know, in my penthouse, in- in Manhattan, right? And so what incentive does the market have to price it in if it doesn't have a price? Like why will it be priced in without regulation?
Rama Variankaval: The anticipation of regulation, right? The anticipation of consumer preferences changing, right? I could keep building a product, right? Which has negative externalities, but I take the risk that either I'll be regulated away or consumer preferences will change such that my product isn't attractive anymore, right? So those are pretty strong incentives or disincentives as you want to think about. And again, asset valuations, asset prices today are just a function of, you know, what the future possibilities are. And you kind of discount that back today, right?
So again, our own Paris commitment, right? And others have, you know, similar commitments. That is a way, that is a market mechanism of doing exactly that, right? When- when we say that we have a Paris commitment, we are measuring the carbon footprint of our clients. And then we are put a 2030 target on where that carbon footprint of the JPMorgan client portfolio needs to be. That's a way of the market, right? Think of JPMorgan as a market participant putting a price on carbon, right? Implicitly, right?
Because if I have to take my portfolio level carbon footprint and reduce it over time, then I am going to price my services with a view to the carbon footprint of the counterpart or the client, right? That's just a market mechanism. And that mechanism will percolate, right? Other banks have come up with, you know, similar ambition, right? Some have started publishing methodologies. We have started implementing these methodologies a few months back, right? So for us today, it's already part of the decision making.
I think others are following suit from what I can tell, other capital providers, right? Whether these are, you know, whoever they are. I mean, every one of them is on this journey in some way to start baking in a price of these externalities, right? It just happened. And so I'm pretty optimistic. Again, I'm by no means advocating that zero need for a regulation, the market will figure this all out by itself, I'm not. All I'm saying is the market can be a pretty powerful force and a pretty powerful incentive mechanism.
Jason Jacobs: So one thing that's confusing to me, and this isn't really a JPMorgan specific question, but you talked about consumer preference playing a role. And you would think it would, but yet there's way more collective agreement on concern about climate change in the populace than is represented in the behavior of our elected officials. And that disconnect is puzzling to me why you think that is.
Rama Variankaval: I would actually try to make a different point than maybe what you're making, which I think is equally alarming, is yes, there is a lot of angst about the issue in- in the popular opinion that you hear, right? But it hasn't necessarily translated into consumer behavior changing fast enough, right? You know, we are all, I'm sure, doing to some extent things differently today than maybe we were doing last decade or whenever, right? Trying to be a bit more conscious of our own footprint, but I would content not enough, right?
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Maybe that comes down to theory of change. I just don't buy that it's consumers that are gonna get us out of a systems problem like this. I think it's the key levers in the system that are gonna get us out of this. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
Rama Variankaval: I definitely don't disagree with the statement but I do think consumer behavior has a role to play, right? I mean, we as consumers do need to kind of, you know, modulate our behavior a little bit. By no means is that going to be enough, right? And again, the mechanism, you look at what's happened especially in Europe, but you know, across the globe, right? As the system broadly has put pressure on suppliers, for example of commodities, let's say fossil fuels, right? And that has led to at least some- some change, maybe not enough change, right? But some change. And yet the demand side of this hasn't really changed fast enough. So the supply side has actually changed faster than the demand side, right?
And what lead- that leads to is price increases and price dislocations, right? But again, you could sit and say, "Oh my God, that's terrible." Or you can say, "Okay, that is the corrective mechanism." Once you start feeling the pinch more in your pocketbooks, maybe that can be the catalyst to change the demand. And we will kind of, you know, reach a new equilibrium where both supply and demand sides have kind of changed. And [inaudible 00:35:21] that something like that could happen, I'm not saying that that will happen.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. I love the saying that- that slowly and then all at once. I feel like a lot of times that's how this type of change plays out. And given where you sit, you have a closer view to this than- than arguably anybody 'cause on the one hand, you know, I think these huge money makers, these big empires that power the industrial revolution and everything like they're gonna kind of hang onto their nest egg as long as they can. And they're playing an important role, but directionally at some point like things change slowly and then all at once. And I'm very confident that when they change, they're gonna change fast. But I guess my question for you is what will it take to flip and how far away are we from that flip occurring and- and what are the key blockers that are preventing us from getting there sooner?
Rama Variankaval: Again, maybe I'm being actually optimistic, but I think the change has already started. And again, look, we spend, I spend all my day obviously talking to our clients and we are JPMorgan Chase obviously has not just the visibility into corporate behavior but also retail behavior as a, you know, large retail bank. I see behavior change again across the board. And I- I- I feel pretty optimistic. Again, what people do worry about and complain about is the pace and is the pace fast enough to what might be really required? You could definitely say maybe it's not.
But I see an acceleration that every day I talk to a client, I mean, I'm- I'm quite amazed how much time our clients are spending thinking about this, thinking about how to retool their own business strategy to make sure that they are, again, you could say it's a value based decision, maybe it is, maybe it's not, but it's a valuation based decision. They understand or they fear that if they do not pivot fast enough there will be an impact on valuation, right? So again, I- I see in my job every day, I see cost for optimism. And by the way, it's not just in the energy complex, it's in our transportation infrastructure, it's in our food and ag infrastructure, it's across the board.
Jason Jacobs: So I'm not gonna ask this next question with a JPMorgan hat on, I'm asking you a personal question. As a citizen of the world, do you hope that we get off of fossil fuel as soon as possible?
Rama Variankaval: What does get off mean? Right? Again, even as definitely answer you this one-
Jason Jacobs: Stop picking it up and- and burning it. I mean that... yeah.
Rama Variankaval: No, I- I actually think, you know, I don't believe that any- any scenario I have seen, if you look at the NZ, the net zero scenario assumes fossil fuel goes to zero any to time soon, right? Fossil fuels [crosstalk 00:38:01].
Jason Jacobs: Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing? That's what I'm asking. Are you glad about that?
Rama Variankaval: If there was a alternative available, right? To satisfy the energy needs of the world, sure, I would pick the alternative, which was, let's assume obviously no carbon or low carbon. For sure, I would pick that, right? But I'm also realistic that it's not clear. We look in a world where the population continues to grow, right? In a world where living standards continue to improve, which I hope most of us will agree is a good thing, right? How do you... right? So energy needs will grow, right?
So you are hoping that it's the efficiency of that energy use that improves and the intensity of the energy use that improves, right? Those are- are levers and we should push as hard as we can. And if we can kind of find alternate sources of fuel that has been reliable and don't put an undue burden on parts of the world who have kind of, you know, maybe missed a lot of the development that was fueled by fossil fuels in the more developed economies, right? If you can do that in a just way, absolutely.
Jason Jacobs: Do you think by having it to fall back on always, that it- that it slows down us plowing forward to, you know, to make it viable to live without them?
Rama Variankaval: I assume so, assume that, you know, having a training wheels on a bike always slows you down, you're, you know, learning how to bike. So-
Jason Jacobs: As- as the largest funder of them, then aren't you part of the problem?
Rama Variankaval: I would not think so to be very- very honest, we're also-
Jason Jacobs: Well, it's enabling them to stay and if they stay, you just said that it makes us go slower to transition. And if we wanna transition faster so that we have avoid necessary suffering, then anything that solves the transition is part of the problem. No?
Rama Variankaval: I mean, I can point to three different areas where that is just, you know, a little extrapolation of the reality, right? What we finance, right? We finance companies that are fossil fuel companies, right? If you assume that all fossil fuel companies do is produce fossil fuel and they have no intention of changing behavior and we continue to finance them, right? Maybe, but that we know that is not true, right? We know that the fossil fuel companies are all looking at how to do energy transition, right?
Many of them are public. Those who are not public are also in private absolutely thinking about it. And from our seat, to me, it is perfectly reasonable for us to be financing companies on their energy transition. I think the world, again, to my earlier comment, the world needs to transition away, right? We can't say that with these companies because historically they have been doing something that the world now thinks has negative externalities we have to stop funding these companies completely.
These companies have a massive amount of, you know, experience dealing with energy systems of the world, right? The engineering knowledge, the capital markets knowledge. These are companies that have been banked by the- the banks of the world, right? So there is a lot of benefits to these companies transitioning the energy system, right? As opposed to saying let's cut the cord with all the legacy players in the energy complex and try to, you know, start all over again somewhere else with, you know, just a set of new companies, right? That just is, to me is just not practical, right?
So, you know, the numbers that, you know, point that we refinance a lot of fossil fuel companies. Sure. But you know, a lot of that money is, again, I'm not contending all of it is, but some, at least some of it is being financed... is being financing the energy transition that these companies are embarked on, right? Which we absolutely want to do, right? And we want to encourage them to do more of it. That's kind of the role I play, is go talk to them and say, "Look, here's where we are, here's what we need to get, what's your plan? Right? And how can we help?" Right? And that's a combination, I would say that it's- it's highly constructive with our clients.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's- that's what you have to say and what you have to believe with your professional hat on. It's your- it's your livelihood. From a personal standpoint, when you see the climate community demonize JPMorgan repeatedly, is that wholly unjust? Is there any merit to the concerns that they're surfacing? How does that make you feel?
Rama Variankaval: Look, I mean, in every debate, I'm not talking even about climate, in every debate, I do feel like you need people expressing kind of, you know, extreme viewpoints. Not because I think the extreme viewpoints are the right viewpoints in most cases because that kind of, you know, pushes the debate in the right way, right? So I have limited sympathy if I can be honest with people who say the world is ending tomorrow, if you don't, you know, make wholesale change, I don't think so. I have limited sympathy for that and I have no sympathy for people who say climate science is hoax, right? These are both, you know...
Again, one is limited sympathy, one is no sympathy, but neither of them to me is kind of the base case. So the base case is, it's an important issue, right? It requires all of us to pay attention, but if we do it in the right way, right? We will bend the curve, right? And so I have- I have absolutely no... The- there's no difference in personal, professional, right? This is... it's... I'm the same person, right? It's- it's no different.
And you know, I grew up in India, right? So I- I know what it means to have access to energy, right? Not having, and then having. And those are real issues, right? How do we make sure that any actions we take right? Doesn't end up having negative consequences in other parts of the economy or other parts of the world, which are, you know, definitionally bad, right? How do we make sure that we don't end up creating more issues than we can solve? Right? So those are issues we think of it all day long.
Jason Jacobs: And you- you mentioned that if fossil fuels were taken away, that you haven't seen any scenario where we have what we need to power the world in a- in a cleaner way, what's missing?
Rama Variankaval: I think it's a host of things, right? I mean, there is clearly technological stuff, right? You know, there is, you know, technologies that seem to be clearly well established that need to be secured, right? Hopefully that happens. That's great, that's purely a matter of capital, right? Which again, that's an area where we can play a role. There is the whole well new technologies that seem to work well in controlled environment but can they really work in the real world question, which I know obviously a lot of money and effort is being spent on. I think that- that's gonna be a part of the problem.
Third is again, you know, where in fact regulation can play a role, right? Is creating the right incentives or the disincentives, right? You know, I'm sure I'm not the first person to bring up carbon tax on this- on this podcast. But creating that incentive, which can create cost parity between an emerging technology and an incumbent technology, right? I think that could be massive. So all of that. And by the way, you know, us as consumers kind of a... being a bit more cognizant of what we do and changing behaviors, that's all part of the mix.
Jason Jacobs: Okay. So technology and policy. So you're the largest bank in the world. Let's just say for sake of argument that one day your CEO had a crisis of conscience and said, "You know what? We're done. We're not gonna fund fossil fuel projects anymore and we're gonna take all the money that was going to that and we're gonna apply it to technology and using our market might." Because I know you're a service provider and you can say, "Well, we're beholden to the whims of our clients.
But you're the largest bank in the world, you have a lot more market might than any other service provider I've ever seen. And so if you were to exert that to things like accelerating the policy discussions and- and plan them forwards, we would probably transition a lot faster. Like if transitioning is what we need and there's blockers holding us back but the fossil fuel industry existing is slowing us down, why wouldn't a company like JPMorgan use its market might to push things forward and do what's right in a way that isn't hedging like it feels like you are today?
Rama Variankaval: Yeah, no, I- I would honestly disagree with that assertion, right? So fuel part, our financing of fossil fuel companies is $50 billion give or take. By the way, again, as I said, it's not like all of that money is simply to continue producing more fossil fuel, right? You know, some part of it is to in fact transition their business, right? Keep that number in mind and compare that to a commitment to finance or facilitate $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, right? Doing the other side, if you will, right? That's $250 billion here let's say, right? So clearly I don't think that's a hedge, right? Clearly we think the importance of leaning in on these newer technologies, newer companies, newer business models, right? Which are more sustainable, lower carbon footprint is very, very important.
Jason Jacobs: If you really believe that, why don't you cut the cord? If the numbers are tiny looking backwards, then so big looking forwards, then- then wouldn't you wanna get to those bigger numbers faster? 'Cause you already said, if the stuff in the rear view mirror went away, that we would get to the good stuff faster, right? And- and wouldn't that be in JPMorgan's self-interest if what you're saying is true?
Rama Variankaval: No, no, like to believe everything I'm saying is true. But I'm not quite sure if the contention is that JPMorgan can cut financing fossil fuel or as an extension, the world should cut financing for fossil fuel. Again, if it is the latter, right? That let's flip a switch, tomorrow the world stops financing fossil fuels, I do- I don't think we'll be able to have this call, right? Electronically, right? So I don't think the world is ready for fossil fuel companies to be completely shut from financing, right? I don't think so. Again, that's just a factual statement.
Jason Jacobs: I mean, look, I think they play an important role in our future. Not fossil fuels directionally, right? But the- the big energy companies, right? And-
Rama Variankaval: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Jason Jacobs: Maybe they have the expertise, they have the capital, they have the resources. We really don't have the time, you know, that all the climate scientists say that we wanna move as quick as we can. And- and quick as we can is not ripping the system down and rebuilding from zero, it's taking what we've got and putting it into good use. So look, I buy that, but I guess a question I have for you is, I mean, do you understand why there's so much distrust of their intentions based on their historical behavior?
Rama Variankaval: No, I understand the point of view, right? I mean, I don't disagree that there is distrust of [crosstalk 00:48:19].
Jason Jacobs: Is it warranted? Is the distrust warranted?
Rama Variankaval: I don't know. Whose distrust? Right? I mean, you know, some people seem to have extreme distrust, right? By the way, there are, you know, people who have extreme distrust of banks, right? Or financial institutions. There are people... Extreme distrust of-
Jason Jacobs: Or science [laughs].
Rama Variankaval: Or science or science or pharmaceutical companies or the healthcare or insurance. I mean, you know, what can we do? Right? I don't know whether that distrust is kind of a driving factor candidly in how I would think about the world, right? To me again, you know, we are where we are, right? We have a pretty good idea of what we need to do going forward, right? Kind of as a macro comment. And then I think we have a pretty good idea of what role a firm like ours can play going forward, right? And how do we kind of make sure that we play our role to the best of our abilities, right? Knowing again, our role in the economy. To me, that's a more useful thing that we are spending time on rather than figuring out, you know, the opinion polls on who's saying what about whom, right?
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. I mean, here's my concern, right? And again, who am I? I mean I'm three years in, wet behind the ears. I ran a fitness app company, you know, before this that was like 50 people at its biggest, right? So what do I know? But from my seat, what I see is I see a lot of these big old school energy companies and even just big companies in general with these stupid net zero commitments.
Like they're better than not having them. But honestly I think a lot of it is just to say the right words and pick a timeframe that's so far out that it'll buy them lots of times to just hang onto business as usual as long as they can. And I worry that from a JPMorgan standpoint or any big bank for that matter that's a service provider to these deep pocketed institutions, that your incentive is to keep collecting the fees as long as you can and if the fees are gonna come from the status quo, then the status quo is- is what you do.
But hold out just something to be excited about the future of these little sexy words and- and like these commitments and look, we're doing this and that, but a lot of it is just mostly PR where- where the rubber meets the road, you know, the status quo is what's carrying the day still. Like that is... that's how I feel. How true that is, I don't know. You're close to it. Maybe just speak to all the listeners and reassure people, re- reassure people that you're serious. ' Cause I wanna believe you, I'm- I'm having a hard time.
Rama Variankaval: No, no look, I would say there is a lot of merit to kind of, you know, some of the criticism you- you have, right? I personally and we as a firm also kind of have the same skepticism about just the 2050 net zero target with absolutely no details on how you're going to go from here to there, right? A hundred percent same page, right? Our own philosophy was, you know, we actually didn't even have a 2050 we... you know, net zero target, right? We in fact came out and said we want to Paris align our financing book and we want to have a 2030 target, right? We felt very strongly that having an intermediate target, right, was...
And then by the way, a commitment to actually show progress towards the target on an annual basis, to us that felt like more useful and meaningful, right? And credible than saying, "Oh, I'll be net zero. Don't ask me how," right? That's you know, the guy who's kind of doing my job three generations down, his problem or her problem, right? So that's something we feel very strongly about ourselves. Second thing I'll say is, so now that we have this target, right? When we go engage with our clients, as I said, like you know, my belief that carbon is the new credit, right?
So just like we are evaluating our clients on a credit basis, we are evaluating them now on a carbon basis, right? And the way we kind of think about the carbon profile of a company includes things like, well, where are you today? What's been your trajectory to get to where you are today? Right? Have you made historical statements? Right? And have you actually, you know, done what you said you will do historically looking back? Now let's look forward, right?
What have you said of about the future? Do you actually have intermediate targets and are those intermediate targets consistent with where we think the world needs to be? Right? And by the way, again, not at 2050 net zero, but I have no clue, but show us where you're going to be in 2030, right? Do you have numerical targets, not just big ambition? So these are all factored in when we made decisions on a transaction by transaction basis for every client who's under scope for our Paris commitment, right?
So to us, this is how we think we can bring about change, being very practical, being very fact based, right? Being very diligent, being very empirical. And again, giving very limited, you know, credibility to anyone who just simply makes a very long dated, big picture commitment but hasn't really done any of the work to show how they're going to get there. Again, that's how we are dealing with it. I will plead the case that other banks and other financial service providers are also thinking about it the same way.
Obviously I don't know all the inner workings of other banks, but philosophically I know that's how people are thinking about it, right? 'Cause keep in mind, look, we are- we are a highly regulated entity. I would be very nervous about making claims about our own commitments without knowing that I have a path to actually hit those commitments. I would not make those claims if I didn't have a lot of confidence on how am I going to go from here to there. So to us, all of this necessary ingredients for us to even make a commitment.
Jason Jacobs: I mean, this is making me realize there's one important topic we haven't touched on yet, which is we talked about how you think that- that if were gonna hit a wall overnight, you know, people that say that, that that's overblown. And you also talked about how people that say that climate science is a hoax, that's overblown. And so where are we in terms of climate risk and how much that is priced in to the current financial markets?
Rama Variankaval: I think it's beginning to be priced in, right? And there are- there are pockets of [crosstalk 00:54:13].
Jason Jacobs: But how- how much risk is there though? 'Cause we were debating about the how much urgency should we be operating with. So how much risk is there even- even today? Is- is there a lot of risk before we talk about whether it's priced in or not? And then it'd be good to talk about in the context of how much of that is actually priced into the markets?
Rama Variankaval: I don't know how to quantify how much risk there is. There are pockets where there is extreme risk, right? And there are pockets where maybe the risk is maybe further out in time or is not quite as high, right? So it's- it's pretty dispersed. Again, I'm... as a banker to me the best window into that question is again, when I look at financial data, right? And you can see if you look at how, you know, maybe fossil fuel companies are trading versus renewable companies are trading in the marketplace, right? You can extract information from that and imply the reason why if I...
You know, both are producing a megajoule of energy, and let's assume a way that there might be other differences, management quality, this, that, or the other, you could say, okay, maybe then there is an indication here of how the world perceives climate risk should be valued or how carbon should be valued and you can start extracting information like that, right? Which is what we do and we look at it. And so if you look at the energy complex, I think there is evidence that the market is beginning to think of it as a risk and pricing it at a, you know, at some non-zero beginning to look real number, right?
But if you go away from that into other- other kind of sectors of the economy, it's not clear at all that the market started thinking about it, right? And so... But again, in my perspective, I- I think the market will, right? The market will over time start thinking about how do I price the risk of climate, right? You know, as a bank, you know, should I again just talking about, you know, a mortgage in New Jersey versus a mortgage in Florida? Should I think about it the same way all else equal or should I think about the impact of, you know, future climate based on how I price those? I think we are thinking about those things, right? I think these things will be put in place before too long.
Jason Jacobs: Do you believe that climate change is a crisis or emergency? And if not, how would you describe the nature and the urgency of the problem?
Rama Variankaval: I think it's an urgent problem. I think that's probably what it is, right? Not quite sure... English is at best my third language. I don't know how to kind of cruise through the difference between a crisis and an emergency. It's clearly urgent, there is no doubt about it. It's not something we can put in the back drawer and say well, I'll come back to it later. It's something we all need to focus on right away. There is no about that.
Jason Jacobs: And when you think about the path forwards, do you think that it is this path of incremental improvements throughout all aspects of our economy? Is that the right pace and strategy for transition or do we need to rip the bandaid and do something more disruptive to avert catastrophic consequences?
Rama Variankaval: If you can rip the bandaid while avoiding catastrophic consequences right now, right? To parts of the world where maybe not visible to us, but you know have their lives and need the support of the energy infrastructure, then yeah, do it now, right? My belief is progress will seem incremental but there will be step changes, right? There will be like technological innovation happens in step changes, I think, right? So somebody figures out how to make nuclear fusion kind of really, you know, viable from a cost perspective, safety perspective, et cetera, et cetera, that'll be a step change, right?
So these things, I don't know what those will be, right? Somebody figures out how to do direct air capture in a commercially viable cost effective way, that could be a step change. So these step changes will happen over time, right? But in between the step changes, I don't think we can sit back and say, "We don't need to do anything, let's wait for the step changes." I think we need to do incremental progress.
Jason Jacobs: And you had mentioned earlier in the discussion that our quality of life has continued to improve. Do you think we'll see the same thing 10 years out and 20 years out in those charts?
Rama Variankaval: I mean, it has to, right? From a global perspective, I would be... it'll be disappointing if it's not, right?
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Do you think we're on a path for that to happen at our current- current pace of evolution?
Rama Variankaval: I think so. I think so. I mean, you look at just the disparity and standards of living across the globe, I mean, even if folks in the developed part don't... you know, if you don't have material improvements from this point on, I think there are lots of people around the globe who have almost no access to energy and lots of basic things. I mean, their standard of living has to be improved. I think that is... talk about an emergency. I mean, that is an emergency. We have to focus on it and that has to happen.
Jason Jacobs: Do you think we're moving fast enough to decarbonize?
Rama Variankaval: I think we can do more. I think we need to go faster, right? As a- again, as a global macroeconomic matter, we need to do more, right? If you look at... should you look at these charts regularly, right? You know, look at where we were in 15 and where we thought we needed to go and you look at, we take a mark to market today, clearly we haven't done enough, right? So I think evidence is we haven't moved fast enough in the recent years even since we knew this was an important issue. So yeah, we need to go faster, no doubt about that.
Jason Jacobs: And if you could wave your magic wand and change one thing that would help accelerate that progress, what would you change and how would you change it?
Rama Variankaval: Look again, you know, policy stuff, creating the right Incentives I think is a big part of it. I think that can always be very, very important tool, right? So carbon tax would be top of list clearly. More consensus among capital providers, right? On how to value some of these externalities will be... I don't know whether it's, again, regulation that drives that or, you know, development of, you know, the markets, right? Is there going to be a more robust market price on carbon, et cetera? I don't know what the catalyst is, but again, creating better mechanisms for capital to flow to the right areas, right? So market infrastructure improvements would be fantastic, and that obviously we have a role to play. It's not something that we have no control on. And I think we- we are trying to play a role on that. So those are the things that come to mind.
Jason Jacobs: Anything that the community can do to be helpful to your efforts. I mean, who- who do you wanna hear from, if anybody and how can we be helpful to you?
Rama Variankaval: Yeah. Look, I'd love to hear from people, right? So I again, I like to think that we are pretty humble about what we know and what we don't, right? And there are lots of aspects of this which are kind of outside our comfort zone, right? We are a bank, right? So I love that the best conversations I have are with either clients or prospective clients who have a different, very different point of view much like, you know, the way you were probing me and saying, "Look, from the outside in, it doesn't look like you're doing enough and here's the five reasons why I think so and tell me why maybe I'm missing something. Or if not, then what are you going to do about it?" Right?
So I always welcome those conversations. You know, to me, having strong opinions is very, very... You know, if you have a strong opinion and that's a different opinion than ours, that's great. We will learn from you as long as you're also open minded to kind of hear from us what is it that we are in fact doing and how we think about the issue and how we think about the world, right? I think we are being rational. Again, being humble at the same time that we may not know everything that we should know and constantly learning, right? So again, love to hear from folks who have an opinion, who have ideas for what a financial services company can be doing to- to really help the world. So open to all calls.
Jason Jacobs: Rama, anything I didn't ask you that I should have, or any parting words for listeners?
Rama Variankaval: I'm glad you didn't ask about kind of, you know, the political landscape and impact of that, that's a whole different animal. So I'm glad you didn't go there. But I really appreciate the opportunity, right? I mean, I know that a lot of what we do again, definitionally tends to be not in the public domain, right? We are in the business of servicing our clients behind closed doors and an opportunity like this to come talk a little bit about our story, our thought process is definitely something I- I welcome and thank you for having me.
Jason Jacobs: Well, thanks so much for coming on and for tolerating my questions. You've given me a lot to think about. And also, you know, I really hope your team lets this ship because I think it's gonna spur a lot of constructive dialogue and I think it's gonna help learning and understanding all around. So I know we talked to about some thorny topics, but- but I- I think from a learning standpoint, it will foster a lot of great discussion which is what MCJ is all about. So thank you again for the opportunity.
Rama Variankaval: No, I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co, note that is .co not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter at Jjacobs22 where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
