Today, 29thJuly 2021 we have reached the Earth Overshoot Day (EOD), the calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. The term "overshoot" represents the level by which human population's demand overshoots...
After increasing deforestation and breaching indigenous rights in 2020, the Brazilian Government has inaugurated 2021 meddling in the Corporate Governance of State controlled companies, such as Petrobras, Eletrobras, etc. At present we are assisting to a confrontation between single CEOs or Directors and the Government. SVI...
It is a sad Luna Park that has been started around the video game company GameStop: an initial simplistic "David versus Goliath" narrative, or in this case "millennial traders versus Wall Street hedge funds" has been replaced by a much less exciting reality and has...
MSCI, along with other predominant index providers, drops seven Chinese companies that have been labeled by the U.S. government as having ties to the Chinese military. Will this decision impede the international inflow of capital to China? What strategic importance does such a removal entail?...
As of April 21, 2020, Morningstar, leading provider of independent investment research with headquarters in Chicago, announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Sustainalytics, ESG Ratings provider with headquarters in Amsterdam. Morningstar currently owns an approximate 40% ownership stake in Sustainalytics, first acquired in...
As of February 24, 2020 Bain & Company (Bain & Co) announced it has acquired a minority stake in EcoVadis. Bain & Co will integrate EcoVadis’ sustainability ratings into its approaches to corporate strategy, supply chain and procurement. They will also seek to develop a...
BlackRock CEO recently announced he will take action towards a more sustainable investment. Whereas, in the early stages, responsible investing meant excluding from portfolio highly controversial and problematic stocks, such as gunmakers. Nowadays, responsible investment means selecting carefully the assets in portfolio and constantly monitoring to...
The Circularity Gap Report 2019 finds that the global economy is only 9% circular - just 9% of the 92.8 billion tonnes of minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass that enter the economy are re-used annually. Climate change and material use are closely linked. Circle Economy...
A new book written by Luiz Awazu Pereira de Silva, Patrick Bolton, Morgan Després, Frédéric Samama and Romain Svartzman and published by the Bank of International Settlements as of January 20, 2020 states how climate change poses new challenges to central banks, regulators and supervisors. Traditional...
Climate scientist Michael Mann is on sabbatical stay in Sydney, Australia where he studies the correlation between climate change and catastrophic weather events. Home to one some of the greatest natural wonders of this planet, like the Great Barrier Reef and lush temperate rainforests, Australia has...
"The transformation ahead of us is unprecedented," said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, announcing the investment plan. The European Green Deal Investment Plan will mobilise EU funding and create an enabling framework to facilitate and stimulate the public and private investments needed for the...
As of January 9, 2020 Private Equity CVC announced it is going to acquire a participation in EcoVadis through a c. US$200m investment from its CVC Growth Partners II Investment Fund. EcoVadis is a French provider of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings and scorecards. For further information,...
Hiro Mizuno, chief investment officer of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, says in an interview to the FT of December 12, 2019 that it values stewardship and it is going to embrace ESG factors fully in all the investment of the GPIF. GPIF is the world’s...
In her interview to the Delphine Strauss FT journalist, Esther Duflo, the second women being awarded a Nobel prize at the age of 47 declares how she got interested in finding small working solutions to poverty in the developing world experiencing poverty in her own...