On the margins of the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings, the European Investment Bank (EIB) recently announced the launch of the Sustainability Awareness Bond. The bond aims to support the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by further unlocking investment in social, green...
May 2018 has been a month of exciting news for the sustainable investing sector in the UK. Barclays, the first bank to issue a UK green bond, has launched new ‘green trade loans’ to help businesses when building out new projects or providing new sustainable...
In 2016, the UK Government commissioned an independent Advisory Group to make recommendations for growing a culture of social impact investment and savings in the UK. Following publication of the Advisory Group’s report last year, Prime Minister Theresa May has now asked Elizabeth Corley, vice chair of...
Good with Money reports that Barclays has launched a new Green Home Mortgage, offering discounted rates for those buying energy efficient properties from selected housebuilders. The move follows the launch of its multi-impact growth fund, which enables its customers to invest in some of the...
The GIIN (Global Impact Investing Network) has released a number reports on the financial performance of impact investing, aiming to set sector benchmarks and build a strong evidence base for impact investment. Private debt and fixed income instruments are among the most significant asset classes in impact investing, accounting for...
While there is plenty of available research on the demand from investors for social investment opportunities – and periodic research into the demand for finance from charities and social enterprises – there is little ongoing, up-to-date information available about the nature of this demand for...
On 31 March, the UN Environment Programme Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Finance System came to the completion of its mandate. The Inquiry, launched in 2014, aimed to advance options to align the financial system with sustainable development, and spurred the development of...
Will AI help people understand their financial options or increase bias and exclusion? How can automated advice take account of people’s social and environmental motivations? And how can AI reflect changing values over time and between generations? The Finance Innovation Lab has released a new briefing...
The call for entries has now opened for the 2018 Finance for the Future awards, celebrating finance teams that champion sustainability. The awards, are free to enter and open to all individuals and organisations globally, including businesses, charities, social enterprises and those in the public sector. The awards are unique...
The Green Finance Taskforce has published its report to UK Government, with 30 recommendations aiming to unlock private finance to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. The recommendations are grouped around ten overarching themes, including: Creating a unified brand for green finance in the UK Launching a...
When introduced to the idea of integrated reporting – communicated how an organisation creates value in the short, medium and long term – companies typically raise three concerns: complexity, cost, and litigation risk. To address these issues, Bob Eccles of Said Business School and Mike...
A new index measuring the progress of the world’s financial centres towards sustainability has ranked London in first place. The Global Green Finance Index, published by campaign group Finance Watch and consultancy Z/Yen, seeks to measure perceptions of the quality and depth of green financial products...
The European Commission has released its new Action Plan on Sustainable Finance, following the publication of its High-Level Expert Group’s recommendations for supporting the sector. The Action Plan has three main aims: reorient capital flows towards sustainable investment manage financial risks stemming from climate change, environmental degradation...
The Prime Minister has commissioned an industry taskforce to progress the recommendations in the ‘Growing a Culture of Social Impact Investing in the UK’ report, released in November 2017. The taskforce will work on generating a faster rate of innovation in the financial services industry...
Access and New Philanthropy Capital have launched impactsupport.org, an online platform co-designed with charities and social and enterprises to offer practical support for impact planning, data and culture. The site – built with “ real insight, experience and grit from across the voluntary, public and private...
Should we scrap the phrase ‘investment readiness’? Nick Temple, the new CEO of the Social Investment Business, argues in Civil Society that too much support is focussed on getting social enterprises and charities ready for one potential outcome, rather than strengthening their flexibility, resilience and...
Earlier this year, the European Commission's High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance published its final recommendations, including a call for Europe to create a robust classification system for 'green' or 'sustainable' investments. Now it's reported that EU finance ministers have accepted the need for a classification system, according...
The MBA has long been seen as the essential qualification for business leaders, but in a recently published extract from her book Makers and Takers, Financial Times journalist Rana Foroohar argues that the qualification is failing the economy and society. Foroohar argues that "MBA education today is basically an education...
B Lab UK has released new research showing that registered B Corps grew 28 times faster than UK GDP over the past 12 months. Average year-on-year growth of B Corps- businesses that achieve a high level of social or environmental outcomes - was 14% in the past year. 150 B Corps have registered...
World clean energy investment totalled $333.5 billion last year, up 3% from 2016 and the second highest annual figure ever. Solar investment globally amounted to $160.8 billion in 2017, up 18% on the previous year, with just over half of the world total ($86.5 billion) spent in...
In tandem to highlighting the Circular Phone report, we've sourced a few examples of the opportunities and challenges of implementing the circular economy techniques in practice. In November the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released a visionary report outlining a new system for the fashion industry based on...
This month, Sustainable Finance Lab, Circle Economy, Fairphone, PGGM, ING, ABN AMRO, NBA, Allen & Overy, and Circularise, have teamed up within a Community of Practice and launch the report The Circular Phone. The report provides practical answers to common financing pitfalls for circular businesses,...
Generation Investment Management has released its 2017 Sustainability Trends Report - the first of its kind after 13 years in operation. The report investigates 5 areas where Generation's research and investment teams have seen significant advances in sustainability: Mobility, Energy, Built Environment, Food Systems, Wellbeing. In each...
When do impact investments create real change? This panel debate on Stanford Social Innovation Review's website features leaders from the U.S. and U.K. impact and sustainable investing world weighing in on the question. Bridges Ventures says focus on under-served geographies; Big Society Capital says look for...
In case you missed it, Ashoka announced the launch of its Social Investment Toolkit, working with UBS. The Toolkit covers an introduction to social change, measuring impact, business model, scaling strategy, financial model, legal structure, financing terms, and pitch. The order of the modules is telling: start...
The Carbon Disclosure Foundation (CDF) published its latest report examining investments across its corporate members. The Global Water Report 2017 notes 535 companies (70%) now have board level oversight of water issues. Diageo, Colgate, Palmolive and Nestle, are now attaching values to water use in order to account for social...
An ambitious strategy setting out how the UK is leading the world in cutting carbon emissions to combat climate change while driving economic growth was published 12 October 2017 by Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark. ‘The Clean Growth Strategy: Leading the way to a low carbon...
SRI-focused asset manager Change Finance has announced the launch of its first ETF – the Change Finance Diversified Impact US Large Cap Fossil Fuel Free ETF (NYSE Arca: CHGX). The ETF tracks an index that uses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide its...
Bloomberg New Energy Finance published its most recent analysis and revealed that green bonds issuance is set to reach $134.9 billion by the end of 2017, a new record so far. Year to date, green bonds issuance has been $96 billion and another $39 billion...
Under the title, Towards a Green Finance Framework, the European Banking Federation published a report that assesses the role of the banking sector in the context of the discussion on green finance on September 28. The EBF report focuses on the technical, legal and regulatory...
As reported last week, the so-called Current Deals Library was launched Monday by the Impact Investing Hub, offering a public website listing live impact investment opportunities for potential investees. The site collates basic information about current deals in the impact investing ecosystem, outlining the forecast financial return and social...
A new report from TheCityUK and Imperial College Business School makes the case for the UK to better seize the opportunities presented by its position as a leading centre for green finance. It argues that the sector should become an integral part of mainstream financial...
Barclays announced the launch of its Multi-Impact Growth Fund, offering retail and institutional investors the opportunity to generate long-term capital growth, whilst, the bank emphasizes, making a positive contribution to society The Multi-Impact Growth Fund invests primarily in specialist third-party funds, which have been identified and...
New research commissioned by HSBC shows that 68% of global investors intend to increase their low-carbon related investments to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. Growing investor appetite for low carbon investments is strongest in Europe (97%), the Americas (85%) and Asia (68%)....
China will promote cross-border green bond flows and green finance investment as part of efforts to fulfill its commitment to ensure sustainable growth it was reported last week. Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, was quoted saying the nation will stay...
The green finance market has been buoyed by news that British energy company SSE has issued the biggest ever green bond by a UK company. The bond will provide capital to be used to refinance SSE’s portfolio of onshore wind farms. The €600m bond provides capital...
On 29 August, SEB released its latest Green Bond Research Report summarising year to date development in the Green Bond space. The green bond market continues to grow rapidly, with USD 84.6 bn of issuance YTD, standing 53% higher than 2016 volumes Year-over-Year (YoY). According to the report....
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in a report launched 29 August, propose the creation of national green financing vehicles to catalyze environmentally and financially sustainable infrastructure investments in Asia and the Pacific. The report, Catalyzing Green Finance: A Concept for Leveraging Blended Finance for Green...
Seymour Burchman and Barry Sullivan draw parallels between sustainability metrics and quality metrics introduced by manufacturers in the 1980’s in executive compensation incentives in a recent article in Harvard Business Review. The quality metrics where shown to focus executive attention and ensure quality initiatives actually...
IFR Asia convened a panel of specialists in Hong Kong on July 11 to discuss the progress made so far and debate the challenges ahead. 2017 YTD has been a comparatively quiet year for China’s domestic market. However, the arrival of first-time issuers from the...
Millennials are driving the nearly $9 trillion sustainable investing market, according to Morgan Stanley's Institute for Sustainable Investing. Sustainable investment products have grown at a rate of more than 33% between 2014 and 2016 in the US, according to data from the US SIF Foundation...
JPMorgan Chase is expanding its strategy to advance environmentally sustainable solutions for clients and its own operations according to a press release. The firms two new strategic goals include firstly, renewable energy, meaning the firm will source renewable power for 100 percent of its global...
Diversification is the main portfolio management challenge for green bond funds as issuer numbers are limited and concentrated in certain sectors, Fitch Ratings report. The size of the investible green bond universe depends on the specific definitions and characteristics of each fund, but Fitch estimate...
For anyone looking for an interesting podcast for vacation listening (or the commute to work) the latest Wharton Social Impact Initiative Podcast is recommended. In it, Impact Investment Exchange founder, Durreen Shahnaz, discusses impact investing. Durreen Shahnaz started her career with Morgan Stanley in 1989...
The Climate Bond Initiative recently launched a study entitled Post-Issuance Use of Proceeds – Trends and Best Practice. The report is Climate Bonds Initiative’s first detailed study of current practice around post-issuance reporting of green funding and monitoring of green bond allocation. The Post-Issuance Use...
In a push to foster sustainable markets and instill trust in investors, the European Commission has discussed plans to introduce labels for clearer classification of green financial products. In order to achieve the ambitious climate goals set at the Paris Agreement, the European Commission predicts that...
UN Environment published their Green Finance Progress Report last week showing the development of new financial products and encouraging policies to bridge the funding gap in sustainable investment. Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the UN agency, said: “The world has committed to creating a better future...
13 July, the EU’s high-level group on sustainable finance published its interim report prompting the European Union to stop all public funding for fossil fuel industries such as coal, oil and gas. The upcoming revision of the EU’s multi-annual budget is “a significant opportunity” to increase investments in clean...
On July 12, California Governor Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg launched America’s Pledge on climate change, a new initiative to compile and quantify the actions of states, cities and businesses in the United States to drive down their greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of...
The PRI produced a report published July 5 outlining how investors and credit rating agencies (CRAs) are incorporating environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) in credit risk analysis. Shifting perceptions: ESG, credit risk and ratings – part 1: the state of play looks at why ESG factors...
Bio Base: London, UK Position: Chief Investment Officer, Nesta Impact Investments Tenure in current role: 2 years By: Clare McCartney Nathan, can you tell us a bit about your story and how you arrived at Nesta? I started off life as an engineer but always had a keen interest in business...
“What if we told you how to avoid stocks that go bankrupt?” BofA Merrill Lynch’s US Equity & Quant Strategy team boldly claim in this context, Environmental, Social and Government (ESG) factors are too critical to ignore. From their stock take on US equities, they...
On June 29, industry-led Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), released three final key documents that aim to serve as building blocks to describe and support the implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations. The Task Force, chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg, was established by...
Miles Johnson reports (paywall) in Financial Times wealth section on June 23, that according to the most recent Financial Times Investing for Global Impact report, which surveyed 246 family offices and foundations about philanthropy and impact investing, one of the biggest challenges for these investors...
The OECD published its Green Growth Indicators 2017 report on June 20. The report uses a uses a range of indicators covering everything from land use to CO2 productivity and innovation to show where 46 countries rank on balancing economic growth with environmental pressures over 1990...
The Central Bank of China announced on June 16 measures to support the establishment of five green finance pilot zones. The aim of the pilot zones is to boost the development of green finance products including interest discount and tax incentives from central and local...
In its Quarterly Bulletin 2017 Q2 published June 16, The Bank of England announced they will initiate a review of climate-related risks in the UK banking sector. The work will be carried out in a similar way to the assessment of insurance companies it launched...
Bio Base: London, UK Position: Director of Financial Sector and Investor Engagement, Big Society Capital (BSC) Tenure in current role: 3.5 years By: Clare McCartney Evita, please tell us a bit about your background. My background has mainly been in financial services, although my first job straight out of university...
The mid-term review of EU’s Capital Markets Union Initiative was published on June 8th. The report contains a section dedicated to green and sustainable finance, marking another step towards mainstreaming green finance in Europe as reported by EURACTIV’s Frédéric Simon. Once regarded as “exotic”, sustainable...
A summary of the story evolving so far… In the wake of U.S President Donald Trump announcing the intention for the US to withdraw from the 2015 Paris accord June 1st Jess Shankleman on Bloomberg, provides a useful Q&A of what comes of the accord without...
A report was released on May 30 by the Green Digital Finance Alliance, founded by UN Environment and Ant Financial. The report gave an update on Ant Financial Services Group, in association with UN Environment large-scale pilot in greening citizens’ consumption behavior through the use of mobile payment platforms, big...
The seventh NatWest SE100 Data Report, launched in London last week. This is the largest survey of the UK social enterprise sector’s turnover, growth, profitability, and employment. It compiles data from 2,120 social enterprises with a total turnover of £8.5bn. The report indicated that in spite...
On May 24th 2017, Andrew Whiley from The Climate Bonds Initiative published an analysis on the EUR 500m green bond issued by Repsol SA, this being the first green bond issued by an oil company to date. According to Whiley, using the “brown” balance sheets of...
The GIIN published its Annual Impact Investor Survey this week. The Survey analyses the activities of over 200 of the world’s leading impact investing organisations, covering the entire universe: fund managers, foundations, banks, development finance institutions, family offices, pension funds and insurers. The Survey’s 208 respondents...
WHEB, a London-based asset manager published an impact report last week measuring the social and environmental impacts of its Sustainability Fund. The sustainability specialist is one of the first investors to report using the recommendations from the G20’s Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD),...
In American Banker, John K.S. Wilson writes about the threat to shareholder resolutions posed by Republican attempts to dismantle Dodd-Frank and replace it with the Financial Choice Act. According to Wilson, Shareholder proposals allow investors to put questions related to a company’s environmental, social and...
Together with Sumerian Partners, a manager of philanthropic capital for foundations, Oxfam recently released the report Impact Investment: Who are we helping? The report questions some of the common assumptions around impact investment, arguing that most articles on the topic focus on the needs and...
Meaghan Kilroy at Pensions & Investments reported last week from the Big Path Capital's Impact Capitalism Summit in the US. The panelist argued that one of the challenges of adding public investments to an impact portfolio is the difficulty of measuring the generated social or...
Axa, one of the biggest European insurers recently announced they are ending insurance support to coal-intensive businesses, i.e. those with more than half of their turnover coming from mining or coal burning operations, Megan Darby at Climate Home reports. The move will align Axa Insurance with...
Last week, London Business School hosted the Net Impact Conference 2017: Return on Impact. Interest in environmentally and socially responsible investment has grown by 33% since 2014 - today constituting almost $9 trillion in actively managed assets globally according to some measures. Increasingly, investors are asking: how...
Triodos, a leading sustainable bank in Europe opened registrations for its first ever UK personal current account this week. The account, described as the most sustainable current account ever brought to the UK market, will begin with a phased rollout this summer. Triodos has been operating...
Tensions between rich and poor countries were running high at a recent meeting of the Green Climate Fund board, the UN's flagship climate finance initiative Megan Darby at Climate Home reports. Projects worth a total of $755m were approved by the Fund's board, including $265m for renewable...
In an essay Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation, explains the Foundation's decision to gradually invest up to $1 billion of its endowment in MRI funds (Mission-Related Investments), to be phased in over the next 10 years. According to Walker, the Ford Foundation is...
Following the Bloomberg/Carney task force recommendations that companies should include climate data in their mainstream financial reporting, an EY survey reveals that the majority of investors value ESG and non-financial reporting by investee companies. The survey – Is your non-financial performance revealing the true value of...
Financial Times features an article this week by Dan McCrum on investment in the climate change era, which looks at the ways investors take climate into account when deciding what to buy and sell. Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist at the asset manager GMO argues...
A new report released today by CDP, a provider of corporate climate data, analysing an over €250 billion market cap grouping of European utilities reveals that the industry is locked into high emissions from long-lived fossil fuel power plants until 2050. Further, at a carbon price...
Bio Name: Praveen Joseph Based: London, UK Position: Principal Trader & Portfolio Manager - High grade fixed income, EBRD By: Maayan Keren Zur Praveen, please tell us a bit about your background. I grew up in India and pursued my bachelor’s in engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras....
John Waggoner at Investment News writes about the outlook for the impact investment sector under a Trump presidency. According to Waggoner, the best case scenario is that the momentum behind the sector continues and that impact investment will eventually form a part of all investment...
Bio Name: Lizzie Cadbury Base: London, UK Position: Forensic (Investigations and Compliance), KPMG Tenure: 11 years Global issue you care most about: Vulnerable children Lizzie, a Chartered Accountant, is a Manager in KPMG’s Forensic team. She talked to us about a secondment completed in Southern Africa, where she used her financial...
The world's first green bond index-linked exchange-traded fund (ETF) launched on the Euronext Paris last week, Hamza Ali at Environmental Finance reports. Launched by the ETF provider Luxor Asset Management, it is the first ETF to be based on labelled green bonds. Francois Millet, Head of...
Big Society Capital (BSC) recently commissioned polling with ComRes to better understand the views and needs of employees with DC pensions in the UK. BSC argues that the while the DC pensions revolution has been a great success, there is danger that we will fail...
Megan Darby at Climate Home writes this week about EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini's response to the US call for increased defence spending by NATO members. Defence chief James Mattis and VP Mike Pence were at the Munich Security Conference where Mogherini offered to...
A new report finds that the risks arising from climate change impact more industries than any other environmental, social and governance (ESG) issue in a typical UK pension scheme's defined-contribution (DC) default fund portfolio. The report, commissioned by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and...
Bio Name: Michael Harris Base: London, UK Position: Manager, PwC and co-founder of BeyondMe Tenure: 6 years Global issue you care most about: Mental health Michael Harris is a chartered accountant with PwC and the co-founder of BeyondMe, an organisation which pairs professionals wanting to volunteer their time and skills with charity...
The Climate Bonds Initiative recently published an analysis of 2016 policy highlights from around the globe on green bonds. It finds that 2016 was a watershed moment as the Paris agreement entered in to force and pushed governments to outline plans to achieve their pledged...
Climate change and the business risks it poses are becoming a key corporate sustainability reporting trend, according to a report from the Global Reporting Initiative and advisory firm SustainAbility, Jessica Lyons Hardcastle at Environmental Leader reports this week. The report, which consolidates insights from the GRI...
By Maayan Keren-Zur Enrico, tell us a bit about your background and what motivated you to pursue something different, impactful as it were? I discovered the impact investing space during my first Master degree in International Policy at the Catholic University in Milan. I read about it...
Dave Trow, Assistant Manager at KPMG, entered and won one of the firm’s corporate responsibility competitions, ‘BRIGHT’. The programme is focused on developing new ideas specifically targeted at addressing the UN millennium development goals. He active in KPMG's volunteering programmes and at the same time...
A task force established in 2013 under the UK’s presidency of the G8, defined social impact investment as "investment that intentionally targets specific social objectives along with a financial return, and measures the achievement of both." In a publication in March 2016, Minister for Civil Society Rob...
Ireland could become the first country in the world to entirely divest its sovereign wealth fund from coal, oil and gas, Climate Home reports. Lawmakers were overwhelmingly split in favour of the €8 billion Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to exit holdings in coal, oil and gas...
Bio Name: Ilan Ganot Base: Cambridge, Massachusetts Position: Founder and CEO, Solid Biosciences Tenure: 3 years Global issue you care most about: Muscular dystrophy Ilan left his life a hedge fund banker at JPMorgan in London to create a new business aimed at developing drugs for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. His son's...
Besides the heartwarming scenes from Women's Marches around the globe yesterday, there are other reasons to feel hopeful about the state of the planet: Chris Goodall argues in the Guardian Sustainable Business that we now have the technology to make a complete transition from carbon to...
A report released today by Boston Common Asset Management looks at how 28 of the world's largest banks are managing climate-related risks. It finds that while many banks are now conducting carbon footprinting and environmental stress-tests, they largely fail to use their own climate data...
Bio Name: Ronald Choi Base: Tokyo, Japan Position: Executive Director, JPMorgan Tenure: 7 years Global issue you care most about: Disaster relief Ronald has been donating both his time and project-execution skills to multiple JPM-sponsored schemes for rebuilding infrastructure and facilities in Japan for communities that were impacted by the Fukushima...
More than 600 leading businesses and financial institutions have signed an open letter to urge president-elect Donald Trump to take action on climate change. The release of the letter coincides with the start of the Senate hearings to confirm his cabinet nominees, many of whom...
Let's start the new year with some good news: The UK generated more electricity from wind than from coal power plants for the first time in 2016, according to energy analysts. Electricity generated from coal accounted for 9.2 per cent of the total energy market last...
A new report from the Resolution Foundation finds that the gender pay gap for millennials in their 20s has shrunk to just 5 per cent, according to Blue & Green Tomorrow. However, any progress is threatened by signs which indicate that as women reach their...
On Wednesday, the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) published its recommendations, urging companies to disclose the financial effects of climate change. Headed by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, the task force was set up...
FTSE Russell celebrates the 15th anniversary this week of its flagship ESG Index Series, the FTSE4Good. Launched in 2001, the index series aims to provide investors with a transparent and objective benchmark related to social and environmental sustainability. The index includes companies that are regularly...
Finance Matters attended the GIIN Investor Forum in Amsterdam this week. The forum brought together over 800 participants from 45 countries and 6 continents from various areas across impact investment: asset managers and owners, social enterprises, civil society and academia - to discuss the most...