Sustainable & Responsible Investing News

Resource scarcity in our globalized economy jeopardizes the abundance of countless goods, but one resource — as spotlighted by the recent coverage of the fires in the Amazon — underpins them all: land. As investors look at land-based portfolio risks, the agriculture sector is at the center of their attention. This focus makes sense. As […]

Governance & Accountability Institute (G&A) announces the results of its inaugural study on the 2018 sustainability reporting trends of the companies in the Russell 1000 Index®.  This research expands G&A’s annual studies, conducted for the last eight years, of the S&P 500® companies to include the next 500 largest companies in the US Capital Markets. G&A Institute’s […]

The Business Roundtable is an organization of CEOs of the largest companies in the U.S.A. — firms that generate a combined US$7 trillion in revenues, employ 15 million people, invest $147 billion annually in R&D, and provide healthcare and retirements benefits for tens of millions of Americans. Member companies operate in every one of the […]

A new study shows that sustainable funds provide both financial performance and lowered risk, as well as ways to invest responsibly. Let’s say you’re in the market for a new toaster. You finally narrow your choices to two models that cost the same and more or less deliver the same even toast, but one of […]

For several decades now, investors have increasingly focused on issues involving executive compensation.  Remember Graef S. Crystal?  Back in 1992 the former compensation consultant to the largest corporations became an activist focused on “excess” pay arrangements for U.S. corporate CEOs (his book was “In Search of Excess – the Overcompensation of American Executives”). Every company […]

The Morgan Stanley Impact Quotient™ application gives Wealth Management clients new customizable insights into the social and environmental impact of their investment portfolios Morgan Stanley Impact Quotient uses technology to provide both transparency and the ability to customize portfolios for specific impact objectives Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) announced the launch of a new sustainable investing […]

U.S. House lawmakers took an important step forward on Tuesday in protecting the American economy from the impacts of climate change. They advanced legislation that would require all publicly held companies to disclose critical information on climate-related risks in their operations and supply chains. The bill, the Climate Risk Disclosure Act of 2019, is rooted […]

Gender equality – one of the four key global megatrends BNY Mellon addresses in its 2018 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report – improves lives, families, communities and economies. It is a key tenet of BNY Mellon’s diversity and inclusion strategy and social investing work. The company strives to hire more women at all levels, advance […]

Societal and environmental shifts continually reshape the future and present exciting new opportunities for BNY Mellon’s businesses and stakeholders. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) empowers BNY Mellon to invest in these possibilities and use their reach, market influence and resources to address pressing world challenges by allocating resources to have the greatest impact around the world. […]

Global Sustain Group (https://globalsustaingroup.com/) organised successfully for fourth consecutive year in collaboration with Forum for Responsible Investment (FNG) & SEB AB Frankfurt Branch the 4th ESG Responsible Investments & Sustainable Finance Forum  in Frankfurt on  21.5.2019. Among forum speakers were senior managers from: European Investment Bank (EIB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), SEB […]

Global climate change, the binding international goal for a transition to a low carbon economy under 2 degrees, the recent new EU Sustainable Investment Disclosure Rules, the new EU Directive for Non-Financial Reporting, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the market driven self-regulation initiatives such as TCFD, the market proof as well as studies that show, […]

NEW YORK, MAY 21, 2019 /3BL Media/ – Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) welcomes more than 300 corporate leaders from across the U.S. and around the world to the 2019 CECP Summit: Integrity and Action: Reshaping the Role of Business. The event, held annually in NYC, brings together professionals who drive societal investment strategies […]

The Indigenous economy is a force to be reckoned with – and investors are beginning to wake up to this fact. On February 21st in Ottawa, SHARE (a leader in responsible investment services, research and education) and the National Aboriginal Trust Officers Association (NATOA) co-hosted the first ‘Reconciliation and the Indigenous Economy: The Role for […]

It’s been a busy spring for the divestment movement and everyone working to get big money out of fossil fuels. This week, New York State held public hearings debating the issue of divesting the New York State Common Retirement Fund from oil, coal and gas. Last week, Denver announced that its US$5.3 billion portfolio had […]

Last year, the world’s leading climate scientists sent a clear message: we must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent in 10 years and transition to a carbon free economy by 2050 in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. One of the most important steps in achieving that goal is accelerating […]

NEW YORK, April 23, 2019 /3BL Media/ – Building on a significant body of original research and ongoing feedback from institutional investors, CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative (SII) has released a template for companies seeking to develop and communicate effective long-term strategic plans that help inform investment, voting, and engagement decisions. According to buy-side investors, the […]

“Movements” – what comes to mind when we describe the characteristics of this term are 20th Century examples. The late-20th Century “environmental movement” was a segue from the older 19th and early 20th Century “conservation movement” that was jump started by President Theodore Roosevelt (#26), who in his 8 years in the Oval Office preserved […]

Where has corporate Sustainability and its cousins; CSR, Impact Investing, Profit with Purpose, and Social Innovation actually taken us? Some may argue that it’s delivering a cultural shift in how we conduct business and some might argue that it’s a slow process and that we just need more time. But the harsh truth is that […]

The FTI Consulting business advisory firm surveyed a set of 130 global institutional investors to gauge the depth and breadth of U.S. assets invested using ESG principles.  This group of investors, contacted from May through July 2018, responded that their Assets Under Management totaling US$8.4 trillion was believed to have benefited by the contribution of […]

The integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment processes and decision-making is on the rise globally. The responsible investing market is worth almost $23 trillion, representing around half of all assets managed in Europe and more than a third in the U.S, according to JPMorgan Chase. Nearly every market in the world […]

Women are Increasingly Driving Asset Growth Women are and will continue to be critical to the ability to move forward investments in sustainability-focused products and strategies. According to a Morgan Stanley study, 84 percent of women expressed interest in sustainable investing, compared to 67 percent of men. Similarly, research from Moxie Future found that 83 […]

As an official, EU Green Week, Partner Event, Global Sustain and the European Sustainability Academy (ESA) are co-organizing the “Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Day”, to be held on May 10, 2019 at the ANEK Lines Conference Center in Chania, Crete. This event launches a full EU Green Week programme and aims to inform a wide […]

This will be my fifth year contributing to this GreenMoney issue dedicated to Women and Investing. In the past I have discussed studies showing that women are good, that is, above average, investors; I have discussed my discomfort with making gender the only lens through which people make investment decisions, but I have not yet […]

As [miners] tunnel through the rocks, They discover precious stones… But where can wisdom be found? —Job 28. (Good News Translation) The grimy world of coal production brightened briefly in February, when Swiss mining giant Glencore announced it would cap its global production of thermal and coking coal at its current capacity of 150 million […]

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of corporate sustainability and how it’s not delivering on the promise of a sustainable business model. Before you contest that fact, remember that in 2018 CO2 emissions hit their highest level in recent history, plastic pollution continues to get worse and is now in our food chain, biodiversity loss is accelerating, […]

Ratings, rankings, scores, best of lists – these are increasingly important to corporate issuers and for investors.  The popular CBS TV Network nighttime host David Letterman for many years provided us with periods of laughter with his well-known top 10 list segments. (Example: The Top 10 Stupid Things Americans Say to Brits.) There’s long been […]

Bill McGlashan, co-founder of the Rise Fund, resigned earlier this month, following his involvement in the recent US college bribery scam. McGlashan was one of 50 people indicted. The Rise Fund was launched by US private equity firm TPG in 2016, and counts high-profile names including U2’s Bono, Jeff Skoll, Paul Polman and Richard Branson on […]

SAO PAULO, March 21, 2019 /3BL Media/— Companies and investors joined representatives from Government and the UN today to discuss how the private sector can play a greater role in directing capital towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Launched at B3 Headquarters in São Paulo, the inaugural SDG Investment Forum focused on the opportunities and challenges of […]