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Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Cleantech investment was the focus of this week’s ESG news. From funding challenges, to the notorious valley of death, some of the most impactful climate tech startups could be at serious risk if governments and institutions don’t rise to the challenge.
Verity Snow
July 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week, BlackRock’s former chief sustainable investment officer criticised the bank’s role in promoting ‘dangerous’ ESG concepts. Wall Street has begun to swap out the ESG label for ‘sustainable’ in attempts to avoid investor backlash and EU banks call for an overhaul of the continent’s sustainable finance rules as the regulations stifle overseas investment in green transition projects.
Verity Snow
July 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Shareholder support for ESG issues in the US is waning for the second year straight, meanwhile Morgan Stanley predicts ‘power-guzzling’ AI will drive up green debt, and research shows the green economy has delivered high returns over the past 10 years.
Verity Snow
July 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

ESG news was dominated by more scrutiny of carbon credits as climate activists declared that carbon offsets are undermining net zero action. In the US, BlackRock continues its effort to navigate the backlash against ESG investing whilst UK banks grapple with ongoing activist investor movements and shifting societal priorities.
Verity Snow
July 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week’s ESG news covers the rise in sustainable debt as investors pile into green bonds and the continued pushback faced by the EU’s ESG rulebook. Meanwhile, as investors become increasingly sceptical about the power of ethical investing, the 2021 launch of the GFANZ now seems to be the watermark of the ESG trend.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

More on the decline of ESG investing this week, as well as the ethics of boycotts, and the future of carbon offsetting. Investor Baillie Gifford was forced to pull funding from book festivals after facing pressure from protestors over its fossil fuel ties, calling into question the ethics of boycotts. Meanwhile, Wall Street backers are confident that the struggling carbon credit market will recover.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

Poor performance, ESG culture wars and new EU rules have all affected sustainability-focussed funds resulting in news of more substantial outflows this week. Elsewhere, the ECB takes a tough stance on climate change as it introduces fines over the failure of banks to deal with climate change.
Verity Snow
June 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

This week, news that ESG funds are suffering severe outflows for the first time ever dominated the discourse. Elsewhere the SBTi remains at the centre of a fierce debate over carbon offsets that it set to have major implications for corporate climate action, and the need to separate climate risk and financial risk grows.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

ESG news this week was focused around the social risks of renewable energy and carbon removal projects, and the impact of slowing electric vehicles sales on banking climate strategies. Elsewhere, new research from Morgan Stanley shows that 80% of companies see sustainability as a key driver of profit.
Verity Snow
May 2024
Insight

The Week’s Top ESG News

In this week’s ESG news, sentiment grows against ExxonMobil’s CEO after the oil supermajor pursued legal action against shareholder groups demanding more climate action. In the UK, sustainable finance policy rollbacks reportedly threaten billions of pounds of funding and a new trend of ‘impact-washing’ is set to threaten the sustainable finance sector.
Verity Snow
May 2024