July 2020

09Jul

Banks and pension funds among investors bankrolling meat and dairy

Banks, investors and pension funds have poured billions into the world’s largest meat and dairy companies over the past five years, a new report has found. It compares the environmental impact of “‘big ag” to that of big oil. The report, published on Thursday, said private financial backing for the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies totalled an estimated $478bn (£380bn) between January 2015 and 30 April this year. The financing came in the form of loans, bonds...

July 9, 2020
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June 2020
17Jun

UK. Sustainable Investment And The Race to Zero Emissions During The Covid-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) threw the world's health, economic and financial systems into disarray, but the pandemic did little to distract the U.K. from the climate crisis. A recent survey by Ipsos shows two-thirds of Britons consider climate change to be as serious as the pandemic, and the majority support a green economic recovery. Their voices are not unheard, since leaders at all levels of society are strategizing ways to "build back better" for our planet. The UN's...

June 17, 2020
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March 2020

18Mar

BlackRock Converts Money Market Portfolio to Environmental Fund

BlackRock is converting its BlackRock Money Market Portfolio to the BlackRock Wealth Liquid Environmentally Aware Fund (WeLEAF), which the firm says is the first environmentally aware money market product dedicated for the US wealth market. Read also LGIM to launch its first fossil fuel-free pension fund after pressure “Client interest in our LEAF series has revealed tremendous demand for sustainable liquidity management,” Thomas Callahan, BlackRock’s head of global cash management, said in statement. “WeLEAF was designed to answer...

March 18, 2020
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13Mar

Climate risk body launches consultation for pension schemes

The UK-based Pensions Climate Risk Industry Group (PCRIG) has launched a public consultation on non-statutory guidance for the trustees of occupational pension schemes on assessing, managing and reporting climate-related risks. PCRIG was set up last summer by the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions and other government departments to develop industry-wide guidance for pension scheme trustees on climate-related risks and voluntary alignment with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). European investors “not yet pricing...

March 13, 2020
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10Mar

Norway’s Pension Giant Calls for Improved ESG Metrics

Norway’s $1.07 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, which owns stakes in more than 9,200 companies and owns 1.5% of all listed stocks, is pressing the companies it invests in to provide more tangible data regarding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. The fund said it’s no longer enough to hear promises of responsible investing, and that it’s time for companies to start providing hard data to show they’re being true to their word. “In recent years, we have...

March 10, 2020
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09Mar

Climate: pension schemes are policy change enablers

The Private Pensions and Arm’s Length Bodies and The Pensions Regulator have set out how climate change risk should be incorporated into their work, following the publication of the UK government’s Green Finance Strategy in July 2019. The Pensions Regulator has an important role to play within the UK Government’s Green Finance Strategy to help pension funds deal with the material financial risks arising from climate change. This was the subject of correspondence between the Director of Private Pensions and Arm’s...

March 9, 2020
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February 2020

13Feb

U.K. Moves to Require Pensions to Disclose Climate Change Plans

British pension funds may soon need to explain how they are fighting climate change under a global framework as the U.K. aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The U.K.’s Department for Work and Pensions said Wednesday that it proposed an amendment to the Pension Schemes Bill that would require pensions to disclose their climate change strategies under the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, a voluntary framework that is widely used by companies. Also Read UK. Government mulls tax...

February 13, 2020
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January 2020

20Jan

Climate change pushes investors to take their temperature

Policymakers are pushing investors to do more to ensure their portfolio choices help to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change by limiting planetary warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5C. A vanguard of insurers and pension funds, many of whom will be in Davos this week for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, say part of the answer is a new “temperature score” that gives a snapshot of how their...

January 20, 2020
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10Jan

Sustainable Investing in Equilibrium

By: Lubos Pastor, Robert F. Stambaugh, Lucian A. Taylor We present a model of investing based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. In equilibrium, green assets have negative alphas, whereas brown assets have positive alphas. The ESG investment industry is at its largest, and the alphas of ESG-motivated investors are at their lowest, when there is large dispersion in investors' ESG preferences. When this dispersion shrinks, so does the ESG industry, even if all investors' ESG preferences are strong....

January 10, 2020
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07Jan

ESG future-proofing can help to defy market risks

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) found in its most recent stress tests of European pension funds that sustainable investments would help them to withstand an adverse scenario. The 2019 occupational pensions stress test assessed the resilience of the European pension sector to identify areas of weakness and discuss possible preventive measures. Eiopa is part of the European System of Financial Supervision and supports the stability of the financial system, the transparency of markets and financial products...

January 7, 2020
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