This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

On July 28, 2021, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held  a webinar titled “Equality of Opportunity in Action: Addressing Maternal Healthcare Disparities”, discussing racial gaps in maternal health outcomes and the proposed Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.  Maternal mortality rates are critically high in the United States, and problematically, higher for minority groups due to various social and structural inequities. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that Black women are much more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. In fact, if childbirth as a Black woman were an occupation, it would be the 5th deadliest job in America.  The first part of the webinar featured Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, a nurse instructor and Representative with a background in healthcare policy. She emphasized that the majority of maternal deaths are preventable, but that this persistent and withstanding crisis has been problematically ...

On Friday, July 9, 2021, "President Biden signed a sweeping executive order..intended to increase competition within the nation’s economy and to limit corporate dominance, factors the White House says have led to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers while dampening pay and restricting the freedom to change jobs." Mr. Biden noted that “What we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back..rather than competing for consumers, they are consuming their competitors. Rather than competing for workers, they’re finding ways to gain the upper hand on labor.” This order synchs to several issues we identified in Amicus Briefs filed in Federal appeals and lower courts: September, 2018 - Amicus Brief in Net Neutrality Case (18-cv-1051) https://www.prlog.org/12729944-william-michael-cunningham-files-amicus-brief-in-net-neutrality-case-18-cv-1051.html As we noted in that brief, eliminating net neutrality lowers income for ...

At the beginning of 2020, $16.6 trillion in US-domiciled ESG assets were held by 530 institutional investors, 384 money managers and 1,204 community investment institutions. Since 1995, the US SIF Foundation finds that sustainable investments have increased at a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent. This data proves that the financial landscape is rapidly moving toward impact investing. As a student of finance curious about the markets and how I can make a difference, I turned to the US SIF FORUM 2021 to learn more.  Over the week of June 14th - 18th, 2021, I attended the US SIF FORUM 2021 as a Peter DeSimone Scholar. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment conference brings together leaders of the sustainable and impact investing community to learn about approaches, trends and policy developments in the field.  This year’s conference featured 60+ speakers in 25+ sessions with topics ranging from racial justice to ESG disclosure. Additionally, the event inclu...