The Danish nationwide stepped down from his position as chief govt of carbon change Carbon Affect X (CIX) final 12 months to spend extra time together with his household after 25 years in finance and conservation, and had been advising non-profits on utilizing carbon finance to help wildlife conservation.
He died unexpectedly on 21 January after a stroke. He’s survived by his spouse, two youngsters and each dad and mom.
Larsen is credited with integrating sustainability – together with the phase-out of coal lending – into the operations and insurance policies of Southeast Asia’s largest financial institution, DBS, defining the position of a chief sustainability officer (CSO) in a monetary establishment, and serving to to determine Singapore as a carbon buying and selling hub.
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In a world of pretenders, Mikkel stood out as an actual doer.
Fabian Huwyler, managing accomplice, Posaidon Capital
When he was head of tax and accounting coverage at DBS, he took on the position of the financial institution’s first CSO along with his different duties. Though he was supported in his position as CSO by then-CEO Piyush Gupta, Larsen routinely challenged his former boss on methods to push the needle on transition finance, in keeping with former colleagues.
DBS turned the primary listed firm in Singapore to combine sustainability into monetary reporting, an achievement pushed by Larsen.
Named on the Eco-Enterprise Sustainability Management A-Listing in 2020, Larsen led a DBS working group for the Taskforce on Nature-related Monetary Disclosures (TNFD) to assist corporates higher perceive their influence on nature.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, he sat on a bunch arrange by Singapore’s Rising Stronger Taskforce to work out learn how to convey a couple of extra carbon-conscious society, and co-conceptualised the creation of a carbon providers and buying and selling hub in Singapore that later turned CIX.
He additionally performed a key position within the Financial Authority of Singapore’s inexperienced financing work group, which goals to determine Singapore as Asia’s inexperienced finance capital.
Whereas at CIX, he labored on methods to enhance the carbon market and pushed for mechanisms to make sure that initiatives profit Indigenous peoples and native communities, and ship actual influence on the bottom.
Larsen was religiously dedicated to main an environmentally-conscious life-style, and was conscious of limiting his ecological footprint whereas residing in Singapore, the place emissions and waste per individual are among the many highest on the planet.
As he informed Eco-Enterprise in an interview in 2020, he was a vegan, he carbon-offset work journey, prevented air-conditioning and solely took chilly showers – besides in Denmark through the winter. He declined to journey enterprise class, even on lengthy flights to see his household.
An ultra-marathon runner, weight lifter and martial artist, Larsen pushed his physique to extremes whereas sustaining a relentless work ethic, in keeping with former colleagues.
He thought-about himself an animal rights activist first, carbon financier second. Earlier than he died, he was sitting on the boards of animal non-profits together with BirdLife Worldwide, Wildlife Works and Wild Support amongst others, and took a rigorously tutorial strategy to discovering methods to unlock finance to guard the pure world, friends stated.
In a thought management article revealed two weeks earlier than he died, Larson tackled the long-debated concern of whether or not the International North ought to pay for forest conservation, and whether or not conservation is a greater technique than reforestation.
In an article in final December, Larsen deliberated over the rising necessities for carbon initiatives to show their validity, the extra price that meant for challenge homeowners, and the way that will have an effect on the consumers of carbon credit.
Tributes to a carbon pioneer
Larsen’s demise has prompted tributes to his work and character from all around the world. Fabian Huwyler, managing accomplice at Swiss inexperienced finance agency Posaidon Capital, stated he first heard of Larson when he was at DBS, the place he was often known as a “banker who pushes the character agenda”.
Whereas at CIX, Huwyler stated Larsen was a “pioneer” and a “upsetting thought chief” with whom he had frolicked discussing market integrity and paths to progress for the nascent nature finance market.
“Within the nature finance business, we are going to miss your knowledge – and a loud voice for really sustainable progress,” stated Huwyler. “In a world of pretenders, you stood out as an actual doer.”
Genevieve Ding, Asia Pacific head of carbon credit and nature-bases options at e-commerce agency Amazon, who was recruited by Larsen to affix the CIX advisory board, stated: “The conservation and carbon area has misplaced a real chief.”
Steve Howard, vice chairman of sustainability for Singapore state funding agency Temasek, stated Larsen lived “with an unimaginable depth of feeling and keenness that he became motion”.
Larsen was “not content material to let our imperfect world merely be, however was dedicated to taking part in his half in making it a greater fairer, kinder place. (He) mixed the uncommon mixture of a tenacious spirit with a form and mild soul,” Howard wrote.
Recognized to be a reluctant CEO, former colleagues praised Larsen’s management qualities, describing him as a compassionate, beneficiant and “intensely human” boss.
Larsen’s demise comes virtually a decade after he took on a sustainability position in banking. He was beforehand Asia Pacific chief monetary officer of UBS, and likewise labored for Citigroup in London {and professional} providers agency KPMG in London and Denmark.
