Varun Sarda
Varun brings over 17 years experience across roles in banking and sustainable finance, research, ratings and advisory, and in-house sustainability strategy development and implementation.
About me
Varun brings over 17 years experience across roles in banking and sustainable finance, research, ratings and advisory, and in-house sustainability strategy development and implementation. He has spent his entire career working at the intersection of finance and sustainability and currently supports corporate and institutional clients on their sustainability and sustainable financing aspirations.
Varun was most recently Managing Director and Head of ESG Advisory at Lloyds Bank in their Sustainability and Client Advisory team. Prior to Lloyds, Varun led NatWest’s ESG Advisory team in Corporate & Institutional Banking. These roles included developing new offerings, origination and executing ESG mandates across sectors and products.
Before that Varun led NatWest Group’s foray into integrated reporting and engagement with institutional investors on sustainability. He also led the Group’s approach and response to various ESG ratings, benchmarks and performance measurement.
Varun has also previously worked in environment and social risk management in banking, and at two leading ESG ratings agencies (Innovest Strategic Value Advisors and EIRIS), both of which are now majority owned by MSCI and Moody's respectively.
Varun is a regular public speaker on sustainability in finance, and ESG stewardship. Outside of these roles, Varun has been a Board member and Judge for social and civic organisations, and a mentor for the United Nations YSIP.
Varun has a Masters from the London School of Economics (LSE), and a Bachelors degree from Imperial College London.