Joy Williams

Joy Williams

COP26 High Level Champion, Climate Strategist

Manifest Climate

Biography

Joy brings a multi-disciplinary approach to climate change and other environmental, social and governance issues. She regularly provides guidance to public and private companies on how to identify climate risks, develop and report in alignment with TCFD, and undertake scenario analysis. Joy is also a leader in the sustainable finance space. She chaired the Decarbonization Advisory Panel for the New York State Common Retirement Fund. The panel provided recommendations on mitigating investment risks stemming from climate change and maximizing opportunities in transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

Joy started her career as a mechanical engineer before completing a Master’s of Applied Science with a collaborative in Environmental Engineering. Her years at ICF Consulting allowed her to work on a broad range of strategic and climate change-focused projects for diverse clients like forestry companies and power producers.

To deepen her experience in climate change, Joy moved to the UK where she was a technical lead on greenhouse gas emission projects in the UNFCCC carbon markets. She gained experience preparing, educating, and registering carbon projects in developing countries for a venture capital firm. Later on, Joy returned to Canada to work for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment on a large modernization project involving the Ontario Environmental Protection and Water Resources Acts. Joy also supported a change management project, designing large-scale process changes throughout the approvals branch.

Prior to joining Manifest, Joy established the responsible investing framework while acting as the in-house climate change expert at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Working across asset classes including private equity, infrastructure, real estate, credit and public equities, she helped to integrate environmental, social, and governance practices in investment teams. A major part of her role included educating the organization on climate change and helping them develop a corporate response.

Joy is a Professional Engineer of Ontario and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.