.png?width=200&height=78&name=CH%20Diligence%20(thicker%20line-white).png "CH Diligence (thicker line-white)")
BNN Bloomberg: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton barred Barclays Plc from working on municipal-bond deals after his office said the bank didn’t respond to requests for information about its carbon emission commitments.
ESG Clarity: The new strategies – MS INVF Calvert Global Equity Fund, the MS INVF Calvert Global High Yield Bond Fund and the MS INVF Calvert US Equity Fund – all consider ESG factors as part of their investment processes.
Yahoo Finance: For the first time ever, ESG funds suffered net global outflows amid a major exodus by US investors from environmental, social and governance strategies.
ESG Today: HSBC announced the launch of its first Net Zero Transition Plan, outlining the global bank’s strategy to finance and support the transition to net zero, and to meet the climate goals it has set over the past few years.
BNN Bloomberg: Europe’s banks are asking investors not to pay too much attention to a new green metric due to be published in in the coming weeks, as early estimates show the industry woefully behind where it needs to be.
GreenBiz: In early 2024, France introduced the potential of jail time for any corporate director who fails to comply with the country’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Specifically, the penalty includes a fine of up to $81,400 and jail time of up to five years.
Yahoo News: European Union lawmakers backed a two-year delay in sector-specific rules for the oil, energy and mining industries, to make more detailed disclosures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, citing the need to ease regulatory burdens on companies.
ESG Clarity: Of the 2,000 global companies identified as having the greatest potential to transform systems and influence progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), less than a third have verified emissions reduction targets, according to a report.
Yahoo Finance: Exxon Mobil Corp. filed a lawsuit against US and Dutch climate activist investors in an effort to remove what it describes as their “extreme agenda” from the ballot at its annual shareholder meetings.
ESG Today: EU banking supervisor The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced the launch of a consultation on new proposed guidelines, setting out requirements for banks to identify, measure, manage and monitor ESG risks, including setting plans to address risks arising from the EU’s transition to a climate-neutral economy.
Forbes: As we stand on the brink of a pivotal era in the fight against climate change, investors are increasingly seeking opportunities to align their portfolios with the global transition to clean and sustainable energy sources.
BNN Bloomberg: Climate alliances backed by Wall Street heavyweights have struck upon a subtle way to blunt increasingly aggressive attacks by the GOP.
ESG Clarity: More than 50% of disabled consumers have encountered barriers to content, products, and physical and online retail services, according to research by The Valuable 500, the world’s biggest CEO collective.
Yahoo Finance: Britain's financial services regulator is looking at how investment banks and commercial insurers deal with sexual harassment, bullying and other non-financial misconduct amid complaints from alleged victims that they are often silenced or forced to quit.
GreenBiz: Before Republican tirades over the politics of sustainable finance became commonplace, one salient criticism of the movement was a different charge: that focusing on climate solutions through investment products distracts from the political engagement and regulatory changes necessary to tackle climate change.
Yahoo Finance: The world’s best-performing ESG fund of 2023 was built by Ark Investment Management LLC and powered by a huge bet on crypto. The $2.4 billion Nikko AM Ark Positive Change Innovation Fund (ticker NIPCIPJ LX) returned 68% last year, more than double the gains delivered by the S&P 500.
Chief Investment Officer: The movement against environmental, social and governance investing has had mixed, though generally negative, results for ESG investing strategies in name, if not also in practice, according to experts and asset manager filings.
The Guardian: More men than women were appointed to the boards of large financial services firms in Europe last year, even as nearly a third of companies risked falling short of the EU’s upcoming plans to impose mandatory quotas for women on corporate boards.
ESG Clarity: Support among asset managers for resolutions aimed at addressing environmental and social issues has crashed to a level not seen before in ShareAction’s fifth annual Voting Matters report, with only 3% of assessed resolutions passed in 2023.
Funds Europe: Political hostility to US ESG investing has dampened enthusiasm among American asset managers, while European counterparts maintain support for ESG-related shareholder proposals, according to Morningstar.
Hedge Week: The incorporation of environmental and social metrics into investment strategies is becoming increasingly common among hedge fund managers, according to a report by Bloomberg citing research by analysts at UBS Group.
ESG Clarity: Apex ESG and MJ Hudson have merged to form Holtara; a partnership aiming to bring a level of robustness to ESG data and reporting to help clients set meaningful targets and identify improvement pathways.
Yahoo Finance: Texas bars its public pensions from investing in 350 funds run by asset-management giants such as BlackRock Inc. and Invesco Ltd. because a key Republican state official says they “boycott” the oil and gas industries.
BNN Bloomberg: In a corner of finance that rarely generates headlines, investors are busy mapping out paths to huge returns as they contemplate the fallout of new laws in Europe.
CBC: Canada's big five banks are potentially misleading investors with their use of terms like sustainable finance, according to a complaint to securities regulators by a climate advocacy group.
GreenBiz: A suite of "doable today" business actions that would slash demand for energy could unlock annual savings of at least $2 trillion a year across the global economy, while helping to boost growth, save companies cash, unlock competitive advantages and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
BNN Bloomberg: Activist investors are expected to carry out fewer environmental and social campaigns this year after the strategy proved less lucrative than other shareholder agendas, according to business consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Inc.
ESG Clarity: Groundhog Day isn’t until February. But the Redington team could be forgiven for feeling trapped in a time loop of “six more weeks of Winter” on ESG delivery.
Sustainability Magazine: What is the true meaning of environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy? We often hear this term, which can often seem interchangeable with ‘sustainability strategy’, but the terms alone are slightly different.
BNN Bloomberg: Global sales of sustainability-linked bonds plunged 22% in 2023, a record drop, as investors remain critical of the label, and more issuers risk missing their pre-determined environmental, social or governance targets.
ETF Stream: ETFs in Europe may find it much harder to abide by new French ESG fund labelling rules recently implemented by the government.
ESG Clarity: There are thousands of listed companies in the global emerging markets region. Many of these actively incorporate ESG considerations into their operations.
The Guardian: Chief among the campaigners celebrating the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University was a man who arguably did the most to push Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, out the door: Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager and Harvard alumnus.
GreenBiz: In 2023, 21 out of 319 climate tech funding rounds in the U.S. went to female-founded companies, according to data from Pitchbook. That’s 6.6 percent of deals.
Corporate Knights: Temperature records were broken month after month in 2023, pushing governments around the globe to promise to triple their renewable-energy capacity and transition away from fossil fuels at this year’s UN climate summit.
GreenBiz: Is it officially too late to wish you a Happy New Year? As we return to work, here are three sustainable finance trends that are top of mind, along with three themes that sustainable finance and ESG community members say they would like prioritized in 2024.
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