Remy Blaire: As Climate Week New York City kicks off alongside the U.N. General Assembly, global leaders are facing a dual challenge, and that is reducing emissions while managing surging electricity demand as well as rising energy costs.
Now, the international conversation has shifted from setting long-term targets to delivering real-world infrastructure.
Ireland is at the front lines of this balance, serving as a global hub for advanced manufacturing as well as life sciences and digital infrastructure, while working to secure its clean energy future.
Well, joining us live to share Ireland's perspective on turning climate ambition into practical delivery is Dr. Matt Kennedy, Global Head of Client Transformation at IDA Ireland, a newly appointed member of Ireland's Climate Change Advisory Council.
Great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Matt Kennedy: Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Remy Blaire: Well, first and foremost, Climate Week in New York City has kicked off. So tell us why you're here this year.
Dr. Matt Kennedy: So it's great to be here at the New York Stock Exchange.
The reason why I am here is really a lot of the IDA clients, IDA being the investment promotion agency and we're driving business growth within Ireland, a lot of IDA clients are U.S.-headquartered multinationals from an FDI perspective.
So we're engaging with them as part of Climate Week to help ambitious companies become even more ambitious and to drive their economies within Ireland and also within the U.S.
It's really important that, in terms of our engagement with those clients, we really try to emphasize how we can accelerate their growth. How can we help them in terms of enhancing their competitiveness and building on their productivity?
The two twin transitions, as you mentioned, digitalization and sustainability, are core.
A lot of the companies that are at Climate Week have sustainability at the center of their offering.
We in Ireland are trying to build a digital economy that is underpinned by those growth drivers of sustainability and digitalization.
And we're helping them in terms of responding to the demand that comes in terms of artificial intelligence, but also driving environmentally robust and sustainable business offerings so that they can become more resilient in the future.
Remy Blaire: So I do have to ask you a how question, because when it comes to scaling as well as growth in these specific industries, how is that happening?
Dr. Matt Kennedy: Yeah. So, of course, you alluded to the idea of decoupling the growth from the emissions. And that's really what we're in the business of helping companies to do.
And those companies have really strong environmental credentials and strong targets that they're adhering to at a corporate level.
As I mentioned, the digital economy is really the infrastructure that is underpinning a lot of the work that we are engaging with companies on.
So what does that mean? Of course, we realize that data and digital infrastructure is part of that economy.
So we're helping companies to become more resilient by driving renewable energy through their infrastructure.
Ireland is one of the leaders in terms of renewable electricity from onshore wind.
So we're really helping companies that have a digital infrastructure within Ireland to make sure that there's a pathway to enable them to unlock all the investment around clean energy.
So that clean energy investment helps them to decarbonize and have the most resilient and sustainable infrastructure that they need.
Remy Blaire: And now, finally, before I let you go, less than 60 seconds. So tell us about the shared responsibility model here, the assured model.
Dr. Matt Kennedy: So, of course, the companies themselves are responsible in terms of their actions. They climate-assure a lot of their activities.
We, together with those companies, try to help them in terms of becoming responsible citizens. That involves action and execution of the action.
Ireland has strong policy and policy signals that it gives to those corporates.
They are decarbonizing. They're becoming better water stewards. They're embracing the circular economy.
And we're helping them with all those things to report and assure that so that they align with corporate sustainability reporting directives.
Remy Blaire: Well, thank you so much for joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange.
I know it's a busy week for you and your team, so thank you so much.
Dr. Matt Kennedy: Thank you very much. Thank you.
