Browsing: Social investing

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s wealthiest humans, attracted a good deal of attention last fall by saying, “Divestment, to date, probably has reduced about zero tons of emissions.” He thereby put his finger on a key fault line amongst those who regard ESG investmentRead More

By Nicolas Rabener, FactorResearch (@FactorResearch) INTRODUCTION Europeans seem far more focused on the environment than Americans, which might be considered unusual given that both share an interest in the outdoors and have great national parks. Perhaps this is explained by Europe’s higher population density, which puts living space at aRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Ebenezer Scrooge was not exactly a cuddly CEO. The way he treated poor Bob Cratchit alone would not have exactly put Scrooge & Marley Ltd. in the top quartile of the Sustainalytics’ ESG Risk Ratings, as he routinely gutted any notion of social responsibility.Read More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association The saying “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” has its origins all the way back to the 1600’s when most of the carbon now in our atmosphere was “safely” encased in limestone and other rock formations within theRead More

The term “greenwashing” is not a compliment. It isn’t supposed to be a good thing. Greenwashing means the re-spraying of old products and services so that they seem to comply with standards for socially responsible investment. Many investors want to put their money to work in ways that reflect theirRead More

Advocates of sustainable investing in Japan are struggling, according to a new report co-authored by William Burchart and Jessica Ziegler of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP). Their research is based on a literature review and discussions with more than 50 industry experts. The paper was released Sept. 6 and isRead More

By Nicolas Rabener of FactorResearch (@FactorResearch) ESG INVESTING – SIMPLE OR COMPLEX? Investing is complicated as it is simple and complex at the same time. Common advice for new investors is to pursue a buy-and-hold approach for long-term wealth creation. Although this strategy has worked out great in the U.S.Read More

By Diane Harrison In January of this year, the World Economic Forum published an article, A Business Model for Sustainability, which highlighted a couple of key points relating to the growing interest in green business practices: Global finance is also inching toward sustainability. For example, environmental, social, and governance assetsRead More

A new study by Jun Duanmu and three colleagues examines hedge fund use of matters of corporate social responsibility. The authors work from an asset-weighted composite measure of CSR by fund, in order to seek the difference in financial performance of those hedge funds with high CSR investment and thoseRead More

The Global Impact Investing Network recently issued a report on the size of the market for impact investing. The report explores how many investors want to invest how much of their money in ways that will do good for the planet and for the human social structures it hosts, asRead More

Amundi, the French asset management firm that, less than a year ago, launched the world’s largest green bond and emerging markets-focused investment, has just posted a scholarly discussion, “How ESG Investing Has Impacted the Asset Pricing in the Equity Market.”  The paper begins by saying that academic study of ESG firmsRead More

Amber Fairbanks, a portfolio manager at Mirova, a division of Natixis, recently talked to Clarice Avery, a Natixis investment strategist on Asset TV about potential long-term investment opportunity in the ESG space. She described ESG as a way in which investors can benefit from long-term secular trends rather than tryingRead More

The International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM) has put out a paper on climate change and on the difference it makes for investments. The issue of climate change has, in recent years, gone from “being considered a niche issue to one of potentially major financial consequences for all investors,” oneRead More

A new study by the Symbiotics and GIIN research teams looks at private debt impact funds (PDIFs); that is, “independent investment vehicles that allocate on average more than 85% of their portfolios to private debt” and that look to the environmental and/or social impact their allocations will have.   The goalRead More

The Global Impact Investing Network has offered its own take on a much discussed question: do “impact investing” and its variants under various names – sustainable investing, socially conscious investing, ESG investing, etc. – work? And, if so, how well? It looks at this question in a very granular way,Read More

A new white paper from the Investor Responsibility Research Center (the IRRC Institute) in conjunction with Sustainalytics looks at the various approaches that investors, institutional investors in particular, might and do take to integrate ESG issues into their portfolio decisions. Specifically, the IRRC and Sustainalytics, two Manhattan-based research groups longRead More

The Science Communication Unit (SCU) of the University of the West of England has produced what it calls a “future brief,” a discussion of environmental impact investing focused especially on the European context. The term “impact investing” itself is only about a decade old. The idea, under various guises, isRead More

One candidate for the title “next new thing” is “impact investing.” As the term suggests, this refers to investing with an eye to the ways in which the investor’s decisions make an impact upon society beyond his own portfolio. This sounds a lot like socially responsible investing, or like itsRead More

A new report from the World Bank says that six multilateral development banks delivered more than $28 billion in financing in 2014 that "address climate change" in one of two ways, mitigation or adaptation. Read More

The conclusion of two Indian scholars in a new study supports the view that socially responsible investing is good for investors in India. But Faille worries that the battle-of-the-studies has thus far been indecisive, and that aerodynamics suggests this insect shouldn't be able to fly. Read More

Christopher Faille, inspired by Greg Richey, of California State University, San Bernardino, has a few words about socially irresponsible investing, that is, the creation of a portfolio built around destructive human vices. Read More

Guest columnist Doug Friedenberg reviews "Windfall," and looks at the potential for investing in a changing climate.Read More

(March 24 update) We present here recent anecdotals on the subject of climate change.  It’s a topic that affects many industries: insurance, real estate, energy (renewable and non-), food, water, national defense, to name a few.   Investment opportunities arise when there is a divergence of opinion, as is uniquely theRead More

Britain’s Private Finance Initiative has continued through the administrations since Blair’s, and indeed has inspired emulation across the Channel. At the same time, it has stirred up a good deal of criticism, and in November 2011 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a plan to reform the PFI. One of the reform proposals is to seek broader participation by pension funds, or in pale bureaucratic jargon, “access a wider range of financing sources.”Read More