Restoring the Balance Sheet: Nature as Europe's Next Critical Infrastructure
What kind of infrastructure support both economic activity and ecological resilience?
The Green Stage of Climate Change Summit becomes the host for a critical EU-level conversation on how nature can be integrated into Europe's economic and infrastructure planning, including the development of financing mechanisms such as biodiversity credits and blended finance vehicles.
Economic and infrastructure planning has traditionally treated nature as external to the balance sheet, a resource to draw on rather than an asset to plan around. As physical and transition risks move onto corporate and sovereign risk registers, that separation is becoming harder to sustain, and natural capital is increasingly weighed alongside energy, transport, and industrial infrastructure in long term investment decisions.
Instruments such as biodiversity credits and blended finance vehicles sit at the center of that shift. They are being developed by the banking sector working alongside companies and organizations to test new financing structures and set the standards the wider market will eventually rely on, turning natural from a reporting line into an asset that can be priced, financed, and scaled.
Date: 14th October (Wednesday)
Time: 12:30 - 13:15
Location: Palace of Parliament, Human Rights Room
A note on timing: this session is part of a longer agenda, so exact start and end times may shift slightly on the day.
Please note that this roundtable will be conducted in English.
Save your seat & shape a new vision for nature.
As with the other Green Stage roundtables, the session opens with an introductory discussion led by the speakers, before the floor opens to the guests at the table for their own questions, positions, and expertise.
In this roundtable, moderated by Alina Burlacu, we will have as main speakers:
Dr. Roda Verheyen, environmental lawyer and founder of Rechtsanwälte Günther in Hamburg, with over 20 years on the front lines of climate litigation. Her case list reveals the infrastructures we lack when it comes to climate change: a Peruvian farmer's landmark suit against energy giant RWE (Lliuya v. RWE), the People's Climate Case before the EU General Court (Carvalho et al.), and the German Constitutional Complaint that forced Berlin to strengthen its climate law (Neubauer et al.). She's currently representing Pakistani farmers seeking climate damages (climatecostcase.org) and has just filed two new constitutional complaints against the German government (zukunftsklage.greenpeace.de).
Andrei Dobre, Commercial & Investment Banking Director at BRD Groupe Société Générale, one of Romania's largest financial groups, with a stated ambition to become a leader in green finance in Romania, backing clients through the energy transition with sustainability-linked loans and dedicated green financing lines.
Alexandru Ciuncan, Chief Insurance Enthusiast & GM, UNSAR, with over two decades experience in insurance across Romania and Central and Eastern Europe, brings the insurer's perspective to the table: how climate and nature-related risks are priced, and how the protection gap can be narrowed when natural capital is treated as infrastructure rather than an externality.
Christoph Promberger, Executive Director of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, one of Europe's most ambitious private conservation efforts, working to protect and restore the Făgăraș Mountains through large-scale rewilding, wildlife reintroduction, and community programs.
Costin Telehuz, president of ACCPT Ialomița (Asociația Cultivatorilor de Cereale și Plante Tehnice), the largest regional member of the Romanian Corn Producers Association, representing grain and technical crop farmers in one of Romania's key agricultural counties. A farmer himself, and having also served as State Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, he brings the view from the field: how soil, water, and climate extremes shape farm economics, and what farmers need for nature to become an asset rather than a cost.
Alex Găvan, Romanian high-altitude mountaineer turned environmental advocate, and the founder of the civic initiative behind Centura Verde (Bucharest's Green Belt), a civic-public project to protect and then reforest the land around the capital to cut pollution and turn green infrastructure into a shared regional priority.
Corina Constantin, Associate Partner, Energy, Sustainability and Climate Change at KPMG Romania, helping organizations embed sustainability into corporate strategy, governance, and reporting, with a strong emphasis on decarbonization and climate risk. She brings the advisor's perspective on how nature-related risks and opportunities make their way into investment decisions and company balance sheets.
The programme brings together panels and closed-door roundtables designed to foster strategic dialogue. Explore the full agenda:
"State of the Romanian Climate Report" Launch
Roundtable: Circular Infrastructures - Redefining the way we use resources
Roundtable: Restoring the Balance Sheet - Nature as Europe's Next Critical Infrastructure
Roundtable: Capital for a Competitive Green Economy
Panel & Roundtable: Romania's Green Deeptech Potential
Your ticket goes further. Registering for this event also gets you access to the Full Day Main Event at Blue Stage, Tache Ionescu Room, part of the Climate Change Summit, some of the featuring speakers being:
Gianpiero Nacci, Managing Director, Climate Strategy and Delivery, EBRD
Juliette Lassman, Policy Analyst in Water Governance & Circular Economy, OECD
Esteban Arriaga Miranda, CEO, European Food Banks Federation
We look forward to welcoming you to this event and to your contribution to the discussion.