Our thoughts on the key issues faced by practitioners trying to advance sustainable investing.
Financial accounts might sound like they are only for financial specialists. But that would be wrong. The financial Annual Report should also be about sustainability.
If we are to build a more sustainable agricultural system globally, we need technology that is cheap, modular, and easy to implement and operate.
Improving overall corporate governance can improve valuation, but what should we be looking for?
Many companies seem to want the upside that comes from better sustainability optics, without doing the hard work involved in integrating sustainability into their operational processes and strategy formulation - Alison Taylor
Is more regulation always the best answer? Given that so much of it seems to be either failing to produce the outcomes we want, or not even making into the statute books, do we need a rethink?
Are directors properly discharging their fiduciary duty by taking into account the changing landscape in which they operate?
Funding sustainability cannot just be a debate about which funding source - we also need to understand how willing the end consumer is to foot the bill. Or putting it in simple terms, who pays. Because someone has to. And who gains? Is it always the same 'person' that pays?
Innovation is great. It's the life blood of long term value creation in many industries. But on it's own it's not enough. When it comes to putting your money to work, look beyond this to those companies that are good at taking good ideas, and turning them into profitable businesses.
The CSO as the curator of sustainability expertise and driver of change
We should not forget that it's companies who will, by and large, deliver the changes. It's companies that will make investments, change products and services, and adopt new operational practices.
We talk a lot about climate models and how GHG emissions impact temperature, but not so much about climate damage function models. And yet this second set of models have a massive impact on financial decision making.
When resources are scarce we may need to prioritise their use. So even if we can, maybe we shouldn't.