Decoding the EU’s Sustainability Reporting Law

As the General Manager of Environmental Strategy at Maritz, Rachael Riggs, CMP, DES, SEPC, leverages nearly 25 years of dedicated leadership experience to pioneer and implement the Maritz Environmental Strategy. At the core of Rachael's role is the oversight of carbon accounting, reporting, and compliance across all business units.  Her forward-thinking approach includes the development of a bespoke carbon footprint measurement tool tailored for the events sector, fostering close collaboration with clients to implement design strategies aimed at minimizing environmental impact.  

Beyond her impactful work at Maritz, Rachael is an active contributor to industry publications and a respected presence in professional associations and committees. Her notable achievements, such as being recognized as one of MeetingsNet’s esteemed Trendsetters and her induction into the Smart Woman Hall of Fame, underscore her significant influence in shaping the events industry.

Embodying a holistic approach to wellbeing, Rachael's dedication to personal fitness and balance serves as a testament to her leadership philosophy of leading by example. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Rachael continues to carve pathways in sustainability, driven by her unwavering passion, expertise, and dedication to environmental stewardship.

Marc H. Matthews, President and CEO of Corporate Sport Incentives DBA Pulse Experiential Travel, has over forty five years experience in the incentive travel, special events and secondary ticket markets.  Primarily a strategic B-to-B service fulfillment partner, Pulse Experiential Travel specializes in providing sales incentive and customer relationship development programs based around group and individual sports and experiential vacation travel packages as well as premium ticket and ticket packages to all concerts, theatre and sports events worldwide. Marc graduated in 1987 from the University of Maryland College of Business with a Degree in Marketing and a Degree in Finance and also earned two Associate Degrees in Architecture and Civil Engineering. Mr. Matthews currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lisa Grimaldi is the editor, Incentives, for the Northstar Meetings Group. In addition to her editorial role at Northstar, she develops educational content for live and digital events, webcasts and podcasts, and organizes Incentive’s annual Motivation Masters Awards. She is a board member of the Incentive Federation, is a member of the Women in Incentives Network (WiiN) and serves on the meetings and incentive advisory board for Atout France. 

Mike Wallace is an internationally recognized expert with nearly 30 years of experience in sustainability, ESG reporting/compliance, and managing social and human capital issues. He currently serves as the Chief Decarbonization Officer at Persefoni, a carbon accounting technology company, where he oversees strategic partnerships to help with the integration and application of Persefoni’s climate accounting and management platform (CMAP). Prior to joining Persefoni, Wallace was a partner at the global sustainability consultancy, ERM where he counseled clients on corporate responsibility and sustainability solutions and helped shape several strategic partnerships for ERM. In that role, Wallace also served as the Interim Executive Director for the Social & Human Capital Coalition, a multi-stakeholder project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). His work included overseeing the establishment of the overall governance structure, technical council and global network that drove the creation of the Social & Human Capital Protocol, which was officially launched at GreenBiz 2019 by the founders WBCSD, Nasdaq, and Microsoft. Prior to ERM, Wallace was a director for the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), where he worked on foundational initiatives such as the International Integrated Reporting Council (IRRC), the European Commission proposal on corporate ESG reporting, and the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEi) on ESG listing guidance.

As CEO of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance at TheEEA.org, Bruce Bolger is one of the founders of the field of Enterprise Engagement, an implementation process for what is increasingly known as stakeholder capitalism. Since 1988, he has combined a career in business publishing and content marketing with stakeholder management across the enterprise, human capital reporting, and investor relationships in all people aspects of ESG (environmental, social, governance) and corporate sustainability reporting.

Based on nine years of research conducted by the Forum for People Performance Management at the Medill School of School of Media, Journal, and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University starting in 2000, he founded the Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) in 2009. There, he assembled academic and business experts in all aspects of engagement to create a formal framework for the practical implementation of stakeholder engagement practices across the enterprise. 

In his capacity as principal of the EEA, an agency specializing in stakeholder engagement implementation and reporting, he and his colleagues provide high-level and tactical advisory services for organizations seeking to develop, manage, measure and report on all aspects of the “S” or “social” of environmental, social, governance, increasingly known as stakeholder capitalism. He has unparalleled experience in the practical implementation of the people aspects of ESG, human capital, and diversity, equity, and inclusion; experience working in the investment community and universities, and is an early leader in content marketing, having founded one of the first agencies specializing in the field in 1996.

Bolger works with boards, CEOs, CHROs, CMOs, and investor relations at organizations seeking to profit from formal human capital management plans, metrics, and reporting strategies that enhance performance as well as stakeholder engagement, and with investors seeking to make sense of human capital management strategies and reporting.