This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

On the Black Economics podcast we explore the extended 2025 U.S. federal government shutdown (which began October 1) ( Wikipedia ) and its reverberations across our economy. For readers of ImpactInvesting.Online, the questions we must ask go beyond the headline fiscal impasse: What are the implications for underserved communities, minority‐owned enterprises, and the broader ambition of channeling capital toward impact? In the podcast and in this article, we surface three key takeaways — and propose how impact investors, policymakers and practitioners can respond. 1. The macro disruptor: economic data, market confidence & policy risk The shutdown interrupted delivery of federal economic data, weakened consumer sentiment and rattled markets. One recap notes: “the federal government shutdown worries were cited as a primary reason for the decline” in the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index. ( T. Rowe Price ) For impact investors, this matters because: Less transp...

  Data, Impact, and Accountability: Lessons from the 2024 Aid Transparency Index On July 16th, the Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings hosted “ Aid data, impact, and the Sustainable Development Goals ” to spotlight the 2024 Aid Transparency Index launch. The event featured presentations by Gary Forester , Publish What You Find CEO, and Laurel Patterson , Director for SDG Integration at the United Nations Development Programme, Global Policy Network. Brookings Senior Fellow George Ingram then moderated a panel discussion consisting of Christophe Tocco , Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator at USAID, Zacharey Carmichael , Senior Economist for Agriculture & Food Global Practice at the World Bank, and Samuel Kobina Annim , Professor of Economics and Head of the Ghana Statistical Service. Forester’s presentation focused primarily on what was revealed in the 2024 Aid Transparency Index , which surveyed over 166,000 independent aid projects. The index achieved its...

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, recently made headlines with critical remarks about Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and his stance on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). These comments have ignited a firestorm of debate, raising questions about Musk and the broader implications of his views. At the heart of Musk's success is his work in the environmental sector, particularly with Tesla's electric vehicles, which have significantly contributed to the 'E' in ESG. This makes his dismissal of the entire ESG framework somewhat self serving and paradoxical. While Musk's innovations have propelled the environmental agenda forward, his recent comments suggest a dissonance with the 'Social' and 'Governance' aspects of ESG. Musk's critique of the Social component, implied in his rejection of DEI, hints at a broader discomfort, perhaps due to his background as a child of apartheid, with initiatives aimed at leveling the ...

An important discussion took place regarding shareholders and stakeholders. The " Roundtable on Empowering Shareholders and Stakeholders and the Importance of ESG Disclosures " hosted by the House Financial Services Committee, was held on July 12, 2023. This event was designed to emphasize the significance of transparency in disclosing information about a company's sustainability and social responsibility while providing a platform for shareholders and stakeholders to discuss future directions.  During the event, participants engaged in conversations and exchanged ideas regarding the role of shareholders and stakeholders in corporate decision-making processes. The discussions explored ways to strengthen their involvement and influence in shaping company strategies, emphasizing environmental, social, and governance considerations. Additionally, the event highlighted the significance of ESG disclosures. ESG disclosures refer to the reporting of a company's environmenta...

At Creative Investment Research, we are dedicated to supporting individuals and businesses in their pursuit of sustainable investments and corporate excellence. We are thrilled to connect with you and share valuable resources that can accelerate your journey towards achieving your investment objectives while promoting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) best practices. We understand the importance of staying informed and having access to reliable research and insights. That's why we have partnered with Research and Markets, a leading provider of industry reports and analysis, to bring you a selection of highly recommended reports: The Global Inflection Point Index (May 2023) Federal Agency Equity Action Plans (May 2023) Seaweed Farming as Community Development (May 2023) Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the Future of Monetary Policy (May 2023) Creating New Investing Vehicles to Reduce the Black/White Wealth Gap (April 2023) Corporate Pledges in Support of Black Lives Matter (...

 3 月 7 日のウェビナー イベントの講演者は、 Ninety One の ESG 投資ポートフォリオマネージャーであるアン・マレー・ティップー氏と、コロンビア大学の持続可能性マネジメントプログラムの実践教授であるサタジット・ボス教授でした。 主な焦点は、持続可能性の主要な推進要因を特定し、従来の投資家が持続可能性を理解しているか、関心を持っているかを判断することでした。 最終的な目標は、 ESG を通すことで、市場が資産やプロジェクトの価格設定を誤っている可能性がある箇所を投資家が特定するのに役立つかどうかを確認することでした。 まず、彼らは ESG における現在の論争を以下のように表現しました。 ボス 教授は、この論争は ESG の複数の定義によるものであると示唆しました。 これらは、人々が ESG をどのように見ているかによって異なり、 ESG とは、非財務的要因とは何か、そしてこれらがどのようにして持続的に利益を生み出すことを可能にするかを定義することであると説明しました。 そしてこの民主的なアプローチにより、 ESG 要因は投資家ごとに基準が異なるため、評価できないともまとめました。 次に、彼らは投資家による価格設定の問題点について話し合いました。 重要な問題は、投資家の能力と、 ESG を含むためのこのアプローチの変化について教育を受けているかどうかです。 スピーカーは、前述のように、 ESG はさまざまな人にとって多くの意味を持つ可能性があるため、枠組みを作るのは難しいが経済成長と未来の投資に不可欠な要素であると説明しました。この枠組みは、グローバルな問題によって ESG の見方が急速にかつ大きく変化することに影響されます。そして ESG の意味からも分かるように、あらゆる分野へのより深い考察が必要になっていくために共通認識、基準値、指標を設けるのはとても困難を予感させるものであると述べました。彼らはまた、環境やその他の ESG の影響を組み込むために投資家が現在使用している最長の期間である 5 年の期間を超えて分析する必要性を論じ、現在使用しているこの単一分析文化を変更する必要があることも強調しました。 最後に、彼らは ESG を人々の投資スタイルに取り入れることの重要性を表明し、 ESG の確固たる定義が議論を容...

The speakers for this March 7th webinar event were Ms. Ann-Maree Tippoo, ESG Investment Portfolio Manager at Ninety One and professor Satayjit Bose, Professor of Practice; Associate Director, Program in Sustainability Management, Columbia University. The main focus was to identify key drivers for sustainability and to determine whether traditional investors understand or are interested in sustainability. A final goal was to see if an ESG lens can help investors identify places where markets might be mispricing assets or projects. To start, they defined the current controversy in ESG. Professor Bose suggested the controversy was due to multiple definitions of ESG. These depend on how some people see ESG. He explained ESG is about defining what non-financial factors are and how these make it possible for sustainably generate returns. This democratic approach makes ESG factors unratable since they differ from investor to investor.  Next, they moved onto the issue of identifying mispri...

1. We are working on an initiative linking ongoing student efforts to environmental issues . Given financial institution financing of fossil fuels and regulatory support for this, we think the young should decide. Should we stop? How? What should we do instead?  2. Food. Creating an impactful effort. Actually finance stores. See/link food activists and Foodbuy. 3. Housing. We have outlined a demonstration project linking tiny housing in DC to investment banks and money managers. (Doesn't Musk have a company in this field ?) Suggest HUD buy a bunch of these, set them up somewhere in DC, but avoid just creating a tiny ghetto.....  4. Strategic approach to BLM/Minority Bank investments. What's the social return on investment?  5. Black Maternal Mortality. https://www.prlog.org/12876083-maternal-mortality-reparation-facility-for-black-women.html and  https://tpinsights.com/the-state-of-black-maternal-mortality-a-funding-crisis-addressing-power-privilege-and-policy/

       On October 5th, 2022, San Francisco based media company BrightTALK hosted a panel on the importance of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance investing), and to discuss the importance of not viewing Eastern economies through a Western lens. The all-female panel included the host, Georgina Mitchell from WellHouse Consulting, panelist Delilah Rothenberg, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative, and panelist Teboho Makhabane, ESG and Impact Implementation Specialist from Sanlam Investments. The discussion touched upon many important topics, and provided insights into many aspects of the global economy. One of these concerned economic inequality. The panelists, Ms. Rothenberg in particular, expressed her belief that there are many reasons aside from morality that a large corporation might be incentivized to promote economic equality. She implied that a healthy lower and middle class is beneficial to any economy, which, in turn, is ...

               Recently, The Economist Magazine  published an article arguing that the effort to increase the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of corporations and businesses is deeply flawed. The article suggested many reasons ESG is not effective and proposed an alternative they believed would better serve the purpose of improving the environment. However, when analyzing the methods promoted by The Economist , a more effective approach to dealing with these issues is not presented.               The first point that the article makes in arguing against the effort is that ESG is too confusing. The author believes there are too many ESG objectives and that the multiplicity of commercial, business and social goals makes it difficult for firms to know what to do. The article states that ESG provides “no coherent guide” to the trade-offs that busi...

Picture: Mr. Rosen (left, 2nd from bottom) at the New York Times’s DealBook conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday June 9th. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen was among those in conversation with The Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. Picture by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The New York Times. From:  https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/09/business/inflation-starbucks-guns-dealbook On Thursday June 9th, the New York Times hosted their first in-person Dealbook event since 2019, and headlines were made. Among the speakers present were interim CEO and former full-time CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and journalists Maggie Haberman and Abby Phillip. However, the speaker at Dealbook that made the most note-worthy comments was Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen. During her half-hour interview, Yellen addressed several issues facing the country including inflation, crypto, ESG, and the likelihood of a recession. When asked about the effect ...

  WASHINGTON - May 22, 2022 - PRLog -- Controversies surrounding climate change, diversity, reproductive rights, and other issues have generated significant attention and confusion. We anticipate this uncertainty and volatility will continue. William Michael Cunningham founded Creative Investment Research in 1989 to facilitate a style of investing that is concerned with the issues cited above after recognizing the inability of traditional investment styles to protect and further human needs. We are one of the premier firms in understanding and analyzing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and impact investing trends. We have been guided by our General Theory of ESG Investing, a portion of which we have published today. As defined in our paper, "Environmental, social, and corporate governance investing is a decision-making process concerning the purchase, sale and management of an asset or assets selected with the goal of attaining an ...

According to news reports, "Tesla CEO Elon Musk blasted ESG investing as a 'a scam' after his electric vehicle company was booted from a top index of socially responsible companies over labor practice concerns. " Musk also stated that "that Standard and Poors.. lost its 'credibility' by pulling Tesla from its index of companies that meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, while leaving oil giant #exxonmobil on the list. " He is, of course, correct. S&P was fined $1.5 billion for falsifying mortgage security ratings in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Their credibility, such as it is, has been available for purchase for decades. We know what they are. Mr. Musk's complaints are driven by self interest, however, not by concern for the well being of society. As such, his concerns are as invalid as S&P's ESG ratings. Note that this does not mean S&P is wrong about Tesla. ESG data is easily manipul...

A recent webinar titled  ESG Integration Across Asset Classes displayed Bloomberg’s focus on recognizing the need for data centered, environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics within every investor’s portfolio. Bloomberg is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. As a part of Bloomberg’s Portfolio & Index Research Conference, the webinar provided technical details on the firm's efforts to measure ESG. ( Creative Investment Research has been measuring ESG impacts since 1989 .) A three-pronged approach—analyzing the carbon transition, power sector transition, and climate policies—underlies Bloomberg’s climate scores.  With a focus on climate impact and commodities, Bloomberg presented two approaches to measuring carbon emissions—the number one priority of the Paris Climate Agreement benchmarks.  First, Bloomberg experts used company level data and Bloomberg Industry Classification St...

On June 23, 2020, "the U.S. Department of Labor proposed a rule that would 'update and clarify' the Department of Labor's investment duties regulation. According to the news release issued announcing this proposed rule, "Private employer-sponsored retirement plans are not vehicles for furthering social goals or policy objectives that are not in the financial interest of the plan," said Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia. "Rather, ERISA plans should be managed with unwavering focus on a single, very important social goal: providing for the retirement security of American workers." Our 135 page response, filed on July 26, 2020, concerned the social impact of the proposed rule, and stated that: "With this proposal, we believe the Administration and, by extension, the Secretary, have violated their oath to protect the public and should resign or be removed. Of course, we understand how committed these specific individuals are to self-promot...

https://blmesg.eventbrite.com

COVID-19 has forever altered standard business practices. Prior to recent events, Environmental, Social, and Governance efforts have been an afterthought. But the global pandemic demonstrates the fundamental role that ESG plays in corporate investments. The presentation focused on three main points: corporations’ social responses and disclosures to stakeholders regarding ESG factors, how investors incorporate ESG factors into business decisions, and how this crisis will affect what happens next. The first speaker, Martin Whittaker, is the CEO of Just Capital; a non-profit organization that strives to create a more just market in America through the collection of data. Whittaker discussed the importance of corporate social responses in today’s climate by addressing the Environment and Social aspects of the crisis. COVID-19 has resulted in hazardous working conditions, so companies should be prioritizing the wellbeing of their employees. According to Whittaker, the proper treatmen...

Seminar on Conscious Investing with the International Institute of Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. See https://youtu.be/c05OpNkR9Rk via @YouTube

According to the Deloitte Center for Financial Service s, there has been a significant increase in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments since 2017. This follows a clear trend as the public and the global media have begun to focus on sustainability. As a result of this movement, it is predicted that client-driven ESG investments will reach half of all professionally managed investments by the year 2025. While the dollar amount of ESG investments are highest in Europe, the data shows increased American interest in this investment type that will drive future growth. According to the Deloitte Center report, the share of ESG investments in the United States has grown from 11% of assets in 2011 to 26% of assets in 2018. One factor driving the growth of ESG mandated funds is client demand from both retail and institutional investors. In response to this unprecedented growth, government agencies and investment institutions are working to establish consistent defini...

Last week the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets held a hearing on “Building a Sustainable and Competitive Economy: An Examination of Proposals to Improve Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosures.” Several pieces of legislation, or bills, have been proposed, (but not filed yet) in the US House of Representatives regarding Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting by large corporations. ● HR ___: ESG Disclosure Simplification Act of 2019 (Rep. Vargas) ● HR ___: Shareholder Protection Act of 2019 ● HR ___: Corporate Human Rights Risk Assessment, Prevention, and Mitigation Act of 2019 ● HR ___: To require issuers required to file an annual or quarterly report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to disclose the total amount of corporate tax such issuer paid in the period covered by the report, and for other purposes ● HR ___: Climate Risk Disclosure Act of 2019 (Rep. Casten) The US...