Ethical Investment
| Shareholder activism is stimulating drive towards responsible practice Ethicalcorp.com Market: Global, Year: 2014 Big business has rarely faced such intense scrutiny, not just from politicians, regulatory bodies and the media, but from individuals across Britain, still feeling the pinch from the financial crisis. Find out more… |
| Investing For a Sustainable Future G. Unruh, D. Kiron, N. Kruschwitz, M. Reeves, H. Rubel, and A.M. zum Felde, “Investing For a Sustainable Future,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Market: US, Year: 2016 Many executives embrace the conventional wisdom that mainstream investors care little about an organization’s performance on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. Few companies make it a priority to communicate their sustainability performance to investors, or even develop a robust story about their sustainability performance. Why should they? Investors won’t shift their investments, the thinking goes, based on a company’s ESG performance. However, a growing number of investors are paying attention to ESG performance, as evidence mounts that sustainability-related activities are material to the financial success of a company over time. Investors care more about sustainability issues than many executives believe. Find out more… |
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| Bridging the “Pioneer Gap”: The Role of Accelerators in Launching High-Impact Enterprises Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and Village Capital. Market: Global, Year: 2013 Over the past several years, researchers and practitioners have increasingly highlighted a consistent gap in capital and support between social enterprises and impact investors, a gap which incubators and accelerators can play a critical role in bridging. These organizations support early-stage social enterprises by providing them with a range of services, such as business development support, mentoring, infrastructure, as well as access to networks of investors, foundations, and corporations. This report represents the first quantitative assessment of the impact accelerator landscape, with data from 52 organizations globally, collected by ANDE and Village Capital between November 2012 and February 2013. |
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| Conscious capital: bridging the gap between business and investors Business in the Community & Legal and General. Market: UK, Year: 2013 Balancing short-term investor demands with planning for the long term is one of the greatest challenges facing leaders today. How can businesses attract conscious capital, which understands and takes account of longer term plans and performance? How can leaders tell their responsible business story effectively to investors? This report offers recommendations for businesses to help them have the right conversations with investors, and ensure that their business can attract long-term, sustainable investment. |
| Green Transition Inflection Point: Green Transition Scoreboard 2013 Report Hazel Henderson – Ethical Markets. Global, Year: 2013 As the blue and green innovation revolution gathers speed, 2013 promises further shifts away from the fossil-fueled Industrial Era. The Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS) tracks private investments growing the green economy across five sectors: Renewable Energy; Green Construction, Energy Efficiency; Corporate R&D and Cleantech, representing broad areas of investment in green technologies, many overlapping. Each covers an area of substantial capital investment in technologies that are contributing to a sustainable future. |
| Guidelines for Chinese companies doing business abroad China Daily. Market: China, Year: 2013 The Chinese Ministries of Commerce and Environmental Protection have jointly released guidelines on how to operate sustainably and responsibly and comply with host country regulations and international standards. |
| Impact Investing is led by White House White House. Market: US, Year: 2013 US President Obama enters impact investing arena with new program to spur economic growth and job creation through enterprises that reflect the triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental performance. More… |
| Integrating ESG issues into executive pay. Guidance for Investors and Companies. PRI and UN Global Compact LEAD. Market: Global, Year: 2012 The recent focus on executive remuneration has demonstrated the challenges for investors to assess complex pay packages and corporate performance. Existing remuneration plans for senior executives do not necessarily promote sustainable value creation for their companies. However, the inclusion of appropriate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues within executive management goals and incentive schemes can be an important factor in the creation and protection of long-term shareholder value.This guide is a tangible tool to guide dialogue between shareholders and investee companies about integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into executive pay. The document aspires to reflect a common understanding of opportunities and challenges, as well as provide practical examples of emerging practices. |
| The SE4ALL: Global Tracking Framework Report World Bank. Market: Global, Year: 2013 This unique report, written by a multi-agency team led by the World Bank, identifies countries with most potential to make “high-impact” progress on sustainable energy and specifies policy measures to scale up action. It puts numbers to SE4ALL’s three objectives (universal access to modern energy services, doubling of both the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix) and identifies what needs to change where and how to do it. The report also calls on countries, international organisations, private sector investors and civil society to increase energy investments focused on the three objectives by at least $600 billion a year until 2030, more than doubling the current estimated $409 billion. |
| Paradigm Shifts & Entrepreneurship: Investing in Social Solutions vs. Symptoms CSRWire. Market: Global, Year: 2012 Impact investment isn’t a movement any more, but a real and fast growing asset class. Investing in Social Entrepreneurship is now $1 Trillion Market in the US. Read more… |
| PRI: A toolkit for integrating ESG issues into investment and informing investment decisions Katie Swanston, Head of Implementation Support, PRI. Market Global, Year: 2012 This presentation by Katie, shows how the Principals for Responsible Investment (PRI) is a toolkit for integrating ESG issues into investment and informing investment decisions. It’s Grounded in fiduciary duty is both voluntary and aspirational. |
| Discussion Paper of the Investor Roundtable on Sustainable Infrastructure
Market: Australia, Year: 2008 The roundtable was a gathering of senior investment industry representatives strongly focused on the up-side opportunities for investors in sustainable, low carbon, water efficient infrastructure in a changing climate and the related regulatory developments. This paper outlines the key conclusions and the seven key topics that have been addressed in the roundtable that was held in Sydney in October 2008. Investor_Roundtable_discussion_paper_18-12-08.pdf |
| Into Unknown Territory: The limits to adaptation and reality of loss and damage from climate impacts CARE, Germanwatch, ActionAid and WWF. Market: Global, Year: 2012 The report launched by the four organizations stresses the irreversibility of a changing climate. The four organizations equally warn that the fast pace of climate change is increasingly exacerbating natural disasters, food crises and even migration issues. Adaptation to climate change alone will no longer suffice. The report concludes with a series of recommendations to policy makers to prepare for and manage losses and damages caused by climate change. |
| Responsible Business Summit USA Extract Ethical Corporation. Market: Global, Year: 2012 This report is about different business cases for making responsible investment. Responsible Business Summit USA Extract |
| Sustainable Capitalism Generation team. Market: Global, Year: 2012 To address these sustainability challenges, generation team advocates for a paradigm shift to Sustainable Capitalism; a framework that seeks to maximise long-term economic value creation by reforming markets to address real needs while considering all costs and stakeholders.The objective of this paper is twofold. First, they make the economic case for mainstreaming Sustainable Capitalism by highlighting the fact that it does not represent a trade-off with profit maximisation but instead actually fosters superior long-term value creation. Second, they recommend five key actions for immediate adoption that will accelerate the mainstreaming of Sustainable Capitalism by 2020. Sustainable Capitalism.pdf |
| The Costs of Ecoflation
Market: Global, Year: 2008 Ecoflation is a future scenario that combines existing economic forecasts-government estimates on population, consumption and gross domestic product, which we call the “base case”-and adds in projected environmental trends and potential public policy responses. Under the pressure of having scarce natural resources, companies must adapt to this changing environment and make ecoflation an integral part of their business. The-Costs-Of-Ecoflation.pdf |
| Managing the Unavoidable: Understanding the investment implications of adapting to climate change Henderson Global Investor, USS, Railpen Investments and Insight Investment. Market: UK, Year: 2008 This report identifies how companies and their investors are likely to be affected by the physical impacts of climate change. Through this, it aims to enable investors to make better informed investment decisions. Managing the Unavoidable |
| Responsible Public Investment in Australia Australian Conservation Foundation. Market: Australia, Year: 2008 This report analyses the investment practices of Australian government investment funds in 2007. It aims to fill the information gap between the attention given to government investment funds on ESG issues and its little awareness. Responsible_invest_-_ACT_web.pdf |
| Should investors steer clear of companies with large carbon footprints? Insight Investment. Market: UK, Year: 2008 This is an article commenting how investors make decision on investment and their responsibilities. Should_investors_steer_clear_of_companies_with_large_carbon_footprints.pdf |
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| The Value of Corporate Governance & Responsible Business Business in the Community. Market: UK, Year: 2008 By showing leadership on responsible business issues, companies can gain a competitive advantage within their sector, through increased customer loyalty, stronger brand loyalty and better employee engagement.Ensuring that responsibility is integrated into a company’s governance and that environmental and social issues are managed responsibly delivers improved financial performance for companies.This report from BITC examined the relationship between total shareholder return and the management of environmental and social impacts in 33 FTSE companies that have measured and managed their corporate responsibility through Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index (CR Index) in each of its six years. The results revealed that FTSE companies that actively managed and measured corporate responsibility issues outperformed the FTSE 350 on total shareholder return by between 3.3% and 7.7% throughout the period 2002-2007. |
| Responsible Investment – A Benchmark report on Australia and New Zealand 2008 RIAA. Market: Australia and New Zealand, Year: 2008 8th annual Benchmark Report commissioned by RIAA. Its aim is fourfold: to update figures for the 2007-08 financial year for the various forms and segments of responsible investment; to present analysis of its level of growth (or decline); to show comparisons with the total managed investment market; and to provide a summary of the latest reported overseas figures. RIAA_Responsible_Investment_2008.pdf |
From challenge to opportunity: The role of business in tomorrow’s society
WBCSD. Market: Global, Year: 2007
Companies able to tackle issues such as poverty, climate change and population shifts are those most likely to succeed in the future. This is a view shared by eight global business leaders in a major new publication from the WBCSD. From Challenge to Opportunity sets out a “manifesto for tomorrow’s global business” as defined by the Tomorrow’s Leaders group of the WBCSD. It also discusses why and how four key areas of business and sustainable development needto be profitable in order to be effective.
Lumberjacks in Eden
Market
Market: Australia, Year: 2007
This is not an academic paper, but an essay that contains personal reflections on a world out of balance, by Peter Hall, who see this world with two faces – one with happy cheer and another with grim and frightening – that he wants to puzzle out the conflicts between them and their implications for the future. He has comments on the economic world, the world of humanity, as well as the physical world, the environment.
Lumberjacks_in_Eden.pdf
| Responsible Investment – A Benchmark report on Australia and New Zealand 2007 RIAA. Market: Australia and New Zealand, Year: 2007 7th annual Benchmark Report commissioned by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA). It aims to update figures for the 2006-07 financial year for the various forms of responsible investment and to present analysis of its level of growth, showing comparisons with the total managed investment market and the latest reported overseas figures. Responsible_investment_07.pdf |
| Investing in sustainability: An interview with Al Gore and David Blood McKinsey&Company. Market: US, Year: 2007 The former vice president and his partner in an investment-management firm argue that sustainability investing is essential to creating long-term shareholder value. Interview can be viewed here |
| False Profits – How Australia’s finance sector undervalues the environment
Market: Australia, Year: 2006 This report highlights some of the new initiatives, which demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of environmental sustainability in finance. It also outlines public policy reforms that would inform and promote the development of financial markets that fully value the environment. False_Profits.pdf |
| Perspectives on Responsible Investment Mercer Investment Consulting. Market: US, Year: 2006 This is a survey about responsible investment focusing on traditional practices of socially responsible investment, new factors in investment decision making, active ownership and shareholder engagement, and use of minority and female-owned and/or emerging managers. Perspectives_on_Responsible_Investment_Mercer_Survey1.pdf.. |
| Putting Principles into Practice – Investor Responsibility Report Mercer Investment Consulting. Market: UK, Year: 2006 This is an annual report on responsible investment. It aims to illustrate how investors can fulfil their responsibilities to their clients by embedding analysis of corporate governance and corporate responsibility issues into their day-to-day investment operations – and thus ensure a meaningful contribution to improving corporate performance in these areas. Putting_Principles_into_Practice |
| Principals for Responsible Investing The United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Initiative is an international network of investors working together to put the Six Principles for Responsible Investment into practice. Its goal is to understand the implications of sustainability for investors and support signatories to incorporate these issues into their investment decision making and ownership practices. In implementing the Principles, signatories contribute to the development of a more sustainable global financial system. |
| PRI – An investor initiative in partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact Insight Investment. Market: Global, Year: 2006 This document introduces the partnership of UNEP Finance initiative and the UN Global Compact – Principles for Responsible Investment. The Principles complement the UN Global Compact, which asks companies to embed in their strategies and operations a set of universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anticorruption. The Principles are also a natural extension of the work of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, which has helped sensitize capital markets to the importance of environmental and social issues. UNPRI.pdf |
| PRI – Frequently Asked Questions UNPRI_Frequently_asked_questions.doc |
| The Grasshopper and the Ants: Why CSR Needs Patient Capital BSR. Market: US, Year: 2006 This paper explores why and how capital markets undermine CSR, and what is being done, and should be done, to enlarge the pool of “patient capital.” BSR_AW_Patient-Capital.pdf |
| Can environmental factors improve stock selection? Market: US, Year: 2004 The concern over the sustainability of mankind’s use of natural resources has found a receptive audience in many parts of the world. As evidence of environmental challenges such as global climate change continue to grow, it is likely that sustainability issues will be raised by financial institutions, especially those exposed to property loss or product liability. Can_Environmental_Factors_Improve_Stock_Selection.pdf |