It was the usual setup for panelists at a finance conference talking about making smart investments. They were all the same gender. In this case, all women. That probably wasn’t surprising, considering the event was hosted by the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment. Still, Karine Hirn, founding partner at East Capital in Hong Kong,...Read More

(PENANG, Malaysia) — Malaysia has sent back 150 containers of plastic waste to 13 mainly rich countries since the third quarter last year, with the environment minster warning on Monday that those who want to make the country a rubbish bin of the world can “dream on.” Shipments of unwanted rubbish have been rerouted to...Read More

Nature has responded to this “suicide war” many times, “as we have seen through hurricanes, fires, and severe drought in various regions of the world,” Mr. Guterres told the ceremony, at which the European Commision honoured Lisbon’s push for a green transformation that could serve as a role-model for other European cities. But the UN chief stressed that no matter how much harm we do to the Earth,...Read More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you have gone to Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s (GS.N) internet home page since mid-December, it would be reasonable to wonder if you had stumbled into some kind of parallel universe. Visitors are met with a background of lush greenery, along with a banner headline: “Our Commitment to Sustainable Finance.” The...Read More

As the second decade of the 21st century drew to a close, we saw even greater calls for action and policies to address climate change and pressing societal challenges from the likes of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, Time’s 2019 Person of the Year, to veteran naturalist Sir David Attenborough. As the 2030 deadline draws near, collective...Read More

ImpactAlpha, Jan. 13 – Capitalism, in its current form, is not serving our planet or its people. The climate emergency and our worsening global inequality make this painfully clear. And yet, the malaise of the status quo is beginning to spur important change. A growing number of consumers are intentionally buying more sustainable products and boycotting...Read More

SAN DIEGO — The mood among economic forecasters gathered for their annual meeting last weekend was dark. They warned each other about President Trump’s trade war, about government budget deficits, and, repeatedly, about the inability of central banks to fully combat another recession should one sweep the globe anytime soon. Among the thousands of economists...Read More

The year 2019 was a big one for responsible investors who incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment decisions. Issues such as environmental sustainability, human capital management, diversity and inclusion have become corporate imperatives while CEOs are now rejecting the old shareholder primacy model of capitalism. The momentum will continue in 2020. Here...Read More

In the field of psychology, the image is canon: a child sitting in front of a marshmallow, resisting the temptation to eat it. If she musters up the willpower to resist long enough, she’ll be rewarded when the experimenter returns with a second marshmallow. Using this ‘marshmallow test,’ the Austrian-born psychologist Walter Mischel demonstrated that...Read More

“Social investors are too busy running to the top floor to get the impact coming out of the chimney – when the foundations haven’t been built to provide strength and stability to the organisation.” These were the words of a social investor we interviewed earlier this year as part of a research project for a...Read More