Sunday Brunch - who decides the topics for engagement?
Unless you have been living off grid, you will know that one of the defining debates around ESG and Sustainability relates to engagement - by which we mean interacting with companies to get them to change their behaviour.
Yes, we need more mining but how much investment do we need?
Yes, decarbonisation of our economy is going to require a lot more of certain minerals. But, how much more, and how much will this cost?
Making money from coffee waste
Global coffee production delivers more than 23 million tons of waste every year. There are innovative uses, including using it as a feedstock in biodigesters, and potentially as a raw material for the production of higher value nutraceuticals.
Sunday Brunch: more on getting financial people to listen
Back at the end of May I wrote the first blog in a series on the topic of what gets financial peoples attention when we talk about Sustainable Finance. And yes, its mostly, but not exclusively, about money. My starting point is that we all want to deliver change and
Geothermal electricity - power from the earth's heat
Geothermal electricity generation is currently (very) niche, only working in a few locations, and even then its expensive. But that is changing. New technologies offer the opportunity for it to be a financially viable balance to the variability of wind and solar.
Sunday Brunch: the values-behaviour gap
Understanding human behaviour is critical to all aspects of sustainable investing. If we don't know why people do things, we cannot get them to change. And if they are not going to change, we will need to rethink how we make company business model's sustainable and financially viable.
Formalisation - the answer to artisanal mining?
One solution is to formalise the ASM sector, making it possible for the miners to legally earn a living. This is a good solution, but we need to recognise that each location has its own specific challenges - there is not a single catch all solution.
What do ducks have to do with revenues from solar?
Solar is probably going to become our core renewable electricity generation technology. It's simple, it works in lots of situations, and it's getting cheaper. One challenge we need to face up to is 'too much of a good thing', when our solar panels all produce their maximum output at the same time
What investors can do to improve our soil (and why)
Investors need to care about the state of our soil. It's not a problem taking place 'over there'. It impacts us directly, via the food we grow on the soils in our home region, and indirectly, through the food we import. Impacting the supply chains of all companies in the food industry.
Healthy soil elsewhere drives our economy.
Europe relies on the world for it's imported low value agricultural raw materials. Which means that our way of life is supported by soil health, not just within our own region, but globally.
Sunday Brunch: getting financial people to listen
Understand who your customer is, what they care about - that is the way to think about innovation - David Robertson, MIT Sloan This might seem a strange way to start a discussion about how sustainability professionals can get finance people to listen. But if you think about it, as
Will Sustainable Aviation Fuel make airlines sustainable?
Unless aviation gets political priority, SAF looks like its going to struggle to be a financially viable decarbonisation solution for the aviation industry.