Climate banker says US looks beyond ESG setback to become long-term winner

When Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer at Standard Chartered, first decided to leave a successful career as an investment bank to focus on sustainability, her friends and colleagues were skeptical.

“It was just a little sarcastic banter,” Drew told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast. “But most of the people were interesting because they had seen me go through the very traditional side of business, so they knew who I was as a person and how I was driven to really provide value to the organization. Even if they were cynical, they were curious.”

Attracted by the opportunity to disrupt an established industry and lead banks into the future, Drew first took up the role of Chief Sustainability Officer at Credit Suisse before moving to Standard Chartered in mid-2022. The timing was good, she says, as younger customers are looking for new ways to invest.

“It attracted all kinds of parties,” Drew said. “The next generation of people in our wealth business have very emotionally said, ‘When I receive my family’s wealth, I want to invest it for positive outcomes.’

Despite a growing backlash against ESG investing in the US and a strategic shift in climate change policy by Bill Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest backers of the sector, Drew believes the industry of the future will have sustainability at its core, and the market represents a huge and growing opportunity.

“These systemic problems aren’t going away, they’re only going to get bigger,” she says. “Whether you believe it to be human-caused or not, climate change is growing. Its impacts are real and are causing significant disruption to livelihoods, financial and economic viability, in some cases the health of markets, and the way we think about risk. So we must address this issue.”

Drew was named to the 2nd Annual CNBC Changemakers List in 2025.

Drew suggests looking beyond North America for opportunities. Some of the world’s largest and fastest growing economies, such as China, India, Indonesia and the Middle East, are attracting trillions of dollars in sustainable investment, she said. As well as electric vehicles, we are also working on building sustainable infrastructure, ports and transport systems.

“That’s the kind of disruption I’m talking about, and that’s what gives me absolute energy and belief to keep going,” Drew said. “My belief is that if you can continue on this path – if you can figure out how to make it work for you and your organization – when the history books are written, companies that remain committed to sustainable outcomes will be the businesses and models that survive in the long term.”

The key to customer buy-in is convincing them that these investments can not only meet sustainability goals, but also achieve financial returns. But Drew says investors often need to be willing to make a multi-year investment to reap the benefits. “It’s that commitment that will yield long-term rewards,” she says.

Her advice for impact-driven young entrepreneurs looking to disrupt their industries with sustainable businesses:

“Your passion for the sustainability side, the impact side, that’s absolutely important,” Drew said. “But you also have to remember that when you raise funding, if you’re not a social enterprise, you also need to be able to make a case for economic returns. Sometimes that gets lost in the narrative of influence. Make sure you can say that clearly, otherwise you won’t get the funding. It’s the lifeblood of capital to keep your business going.”

Follow and listen to this and all episodes of the podcast “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” on Apple and Spotify.