Are deep sea metals key to the transition away from fossil fuels?

About this episode

Will civilisation survive the 21st century? In this episode, Stephen Freedman interviews Gerard Barron, to discuss how climate change endangers the human race, the benefits and challenges for a sustainable recovery of metals through deep-sea mining, and the forces behind a clean circular economy.

Featured in this episode

Gerard Barron

Gerard Barron is on a mission to help wean humanity off fossil fuels and transition to a circular resource economy. He is a seasoned entrepreneur with a track record of building global companies in battery manufacturing, media and future-oriented resource development, all with an aim of creating a truly net-zero carbon future. Gerard believes The Metals Company will play a key role in supplying the world with the essential metals to facilitate the technologies needed for this sustainable future, while avoiding the impacts of terrestrial mining.

Stephen Freedman

Stephen Freedman joined Pictet Asset Management in 2019. He is head of Research and Sustainability for Thematic Equities and also chairs the Thematic Advisory Boards.

Before joining Pictet, Stephen was at UBS Wealth Management, where he most recently served as head of Sustainable Investing Solutions for the Americas, based in New York. Prior to that he served in various Investment Strategy roles, including head of Thematic Investing Strategy and head of Tactical Asset Allocation. He started his career with UBS in Zurich in 1998 as an economist and public policy analyst. Since 2018, he has been teaching environmental finance at New York University. He was also the founding co-chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Sustainable Finance from 2016 to 2019.

Stephen holds a Doctorate (PhD) and a Master in economics from the University of St. Gallen. He is a CFA charterholder and earned the FRM designation from the Global Association of Risk Professionals.