Transitions/Human Rights
All about the wider issues that come out of the sustainability transitions including human rights
Impact investing can align with fiduciary duty
A frequent debate is the one around impact investing and fiduciary duty. More specifically, does impact focused investing deliver financial returns that are similar to those of a meaningful benchmark? A recent Pensions for Purpose report helps with this question. At the risk of ruining the surprise - listed global
Politicians change their minds
If we are to make regulatory changes permanent, a greater focus is needed on the costs of sustainability related regulation. Yes, we understand the longer term benefits, but every change will create financial losers, and we need to get better at funding the transition periods.
Insetting - defining and implementing at scale
Organisations can reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to zero ('net zero') by either making changes to their businesses that mean they produce no net emissions themselves or they can offset any net emissions they have to some degree by purchasing carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are programmes
Why are we not cutting fossil fuel use?
A recent podcast from Rachel Donald (interviewing Ketan Joshi in an episode entitled Climate Delay and the Fossil Fuel industry) contained the following answer to the question - why is fossil fuel usage not falling? "The answer is complex, of course. One part, though, is that governments are the
Artisanal Mining – No Longer Invisible (a round up)
Artisanal mining deserves more attention. In the last of his series, Rob Karpati summarises why it's important, and the practical steps being taken to solve the challenges.
Is climate risk becoming uninsurable?
Insurers are withdrawing from higher risk regions. And the situation is likely to get worse.
Risk of taking ESG data as gospel
ESG data is useful as part of the decision-making process. However, it is not THE process.
The evolving role of a Chief Sustainability Officer
As a prospective CSO perhaps one of the first questions you should ask of your new employer is 'who will I report to'. The closer we are to the financial and strategy decision makers, the more influence we can have.
Enel to fail its green bond emissions targets?
The Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute, one of our favourite sources on green bonds, recently (20th Oct) highlighted that Enel, the Italian Utility, looks likely to miss its Sustainability Performance Targets (SPT's) on 10 of its green bonds. The bonds have a total notional of €10.bn, so a
The beauty of simplification
Sustainable investing evangelist Nawar Alsaadi had a really interesting post on LinkedIn comparing the internet portals of the 1990s to the ESG and sustainability data companies of today. I certainly remember the days of Lycos, Yahoo!, Altavista etc and as Nawar points out they built themselves on being one stop
Corporate lobbying needs closer attention.
... and the ecgi has done just that! Tom Gosling, Executive Director at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ecgi) recently interviewed Professor Michelle Lowry on her research paper ‘Firms’ Transition to Green: Innovation versus Lobbying’ We strongly encourage all Sustainability Professionals to watch the interview (the above video) and then read
Environmental litigation funding - increasing pressure to prevent?
US hedge fund Gramercy (along with some of its clients) has provided $552.5 million in litigation funding (a secured loan) to Pogus Goodhead, a UK law firm involved in a number of class action lawsuits with environmental links.