Sunday Brunch
Our thoughts on the key issues faced by practitioners trying to advance sustainable investing.
Sunday Brunch: The importance of the Cost of Capital - part 1
The Cost of Capital is a powerful financial concept, but one that hides a lot of complexity. The phrase is often mis-used. One common mistake is to believe that if a sustainability investment is lower risk, it means it's a better investment.
Sunday Brunch: what is this investment worth?
How we create narratives to generate financial forecasts impacts the valuation process
Sunday Brunch: ad singula or 'can I cut airline emissions by getting more people to fly?'
Individual carbon footprint calculations are useful in decision-making but a big picture view is also needed
Sunday Brunch: sustainable finance and the innovation curve
Sustainability is a massive strategic challenge, using the innovation curve can help our preparation. The sustainability transitions will bring change, and executing change is tough. A good strategy is key. Sustainability professionals have a key role in preparing organisations for a new future.
Sunday Brunch: stop right now, thank you very much
Transitions are tough but barriers can be overcome if we take the right sequence of steps.
Sunday Brunch: transition and triathlon
Understanding that transition is a series of steps will be crucial in engaging stakeholders.
Sunday Brunch: premiumisation as a sustainability strategy?
Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.- Warren Buffett Can a premium coffee brand help the farmers ? People who know me know that I love coffee. But, we have to accept that as an industry, it has
Sunday Brunch: the binary chasm
Hydrogen is good. Hydrogen economy is good for all things. Hydrogen is bad. Dangerous. Inefficient. It's bad for all things. H2aiku. Back in February Steven wrote a Deep Dive highlighting how the ESG and sustainability debate has been oversimplified to the point where organisations have inadvertently over-promised and
Sunday Brunch: investing is not just about generating alpha
At it's heart our financial system is really simple. Money flows from savers to spenders. Where this system struggles is when the actions of the spenders impose costs on the wider society that mean that the net return to savers (financial return minus imposed costs) are reduced.
Sunday Brunch: it's a question of character(istics)
The world of investing and sustainability can challenge our traditional ways of looking at the world and characterising and grouping things. When my children were younger we were fortunate to live in the countryside. Our back garden was a mixture of traditional and 'the wild' - the latter
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.
Sunday Brunch - is DEI as important with the investor as with the investment?
We have discussed the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in a number of blogs previously. Have we been looking at DEI all wrong?Embracing diversity with an equitable mindset aimed at creating an inclusive workplace has been held up as a way of improving performance. But is that