The asset management industry is overlooking what promises to be a major new ESG risk: biodiversity.
The dark side of ESG investing has the potential to undermine a whole generation of clean-tech strategies.
Vanguard Group, which quit the world’s biggest climate-finance alliance in December, was the only major ETF provider to post an increase in European assets last year thanks to its lower exposure to environmental, social and governance strategies, according to Morningstar Inc.
At a recent climate-finance meeting attended by Wall Street giants including BlackRock Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., no one spoke until a lawyer had finished reading out a disclaimer stating the group was not a cartel.
The “wall of capital” that was supposedly coming to finance the global energy transition has proven to be more of a dam, holding back most of the cash that was promised.
Some of the world’s biggest financial firms including BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. have told the UK they have no plans to halt the financing of new fossil-fuel supplies, in response to a list of questions sent by British lawmakers tasked with figuring out how the country can meet its own net-zero obligations.
For some bankers, net-zero is like a new year’s resolution—a pledge one makes and often breaks before a year has passed.
To reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5C, investment in renewable energy sources needs to surpass finance flows to fossil fuels by a factor of four over the next decade, according to research from BloombergNEF.
Chief executive officers are putting a number of ESG goals on hold as they try to prepare their businesses for fallout from a possible recession, according to a study conducted by KPMG.
It started with bonds. Now even collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) come in green.
It will cost more than the gross domestic product of the entire world to rewire the global economy to run on clean energy.
The environmental group that authored a key proposal against fossil-fuel financing said pushback from the banks it targeted helped ensure the resolution failed.
As chief architect of the finance industry’s biggest climate coalition, Mark Carney said banks and asset managers are doing a better job at steering capital away from fossil fuels than is implied by what he described as “clickbait” headlines.
The same morning Russia invaded Ukraine, the people running the Church of England’s $5 billion pension fund decided they’d seen enough, and quickly went to work to clear their portfolio of Russian investments.
Private equity firms, along with hedge funds, are significantly ramping up the amount they’re willing to pay specialists in sustainable finance, as a field once at the lower end of the pay scale moves closer to the top.
Digital-asset companies are pushing back against claims of excessive energy usage in the cryptocurrency sector as world leaders flock to Glasgow this week for key climate change talks.
Ulf Erlandsson isn’t your typical climate campaigner: He prefers the trading desk to the picket line.
Casey Harrell, the campaigner whose sustained pressure was instrumental in pushing BlackRock Inc. to act against climate change, approaches his work as if locked in a race against time. That was true even before the 42-year-old environmental activist was diagnosed last year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Morgan Stanley will begin reporting the carbon emissions resulting from its lending and investments, providing greater clarity than any of its major American peers on how the bank contributes to climate change.
It identified 244 companies during the 2020 annual proxy season that weren’t doing enough to either prepare their businesses for a warming planet or inform investors about the climate-change risks.
BlackRock Inc. added its contribution to a growing body of research showing that ESG portfolios outperformed traditional market benchmarks in the recent market downturn.
Linking executive pay with performance is set to gain much greater traction following the coronavirus outbreak, according to asset manager Nuveen.
They say the pandemic has only strengthened their convictions and the performance of sustainable portfolios should vindicate their strategy.
