Finance & Investment
The latest in the spheres of socially responsible investing, impact investing, and other ways investors and shareholders are asserting their desire for ethical investment options.
COP27 Yields Landmark Deal to Compensate Developing Nations for Climate Damage, But Backpedals on Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels
Cross-Posted from Walking the Talk. COP27 ended with an agreement to create a funding facility to compensate vulnerable nations for ‘loss and damage’ from climate disasters; but weakened language around the phase-out of fossil fuels opens a dangerous loophole that could threaten decarbonization before it’s too late.
Bridgestone Wins $35M USDA Climate-Smart Grant to Further Advance Guayule Natural Rubber Production
Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. The USDA has awarded Bridgestone $35M to grow its investment in desert shrub guayule to advance a climate-smart domestic rubber industry and offer a water-smart solution amid the ongoing drought in the Southwestern US.
COP27 Yields More Impressive Forest-Conservation Commitments; But Will Our Efforts Go Up in Smoke?
Cross-Posted from Walking the Talk. From COP27, we see more and more business initiatives focused on not only reaching sustainability, but averting a climate crisis and achieving nature positivity — but have climate-fueled forest fires already nullified our chances at an effective carbon market?
We Must Invest in the Missing Middle to Boost Smallholder Farmers’ Climate Resilience
By supporting smallholders to access agricultural innovation on their farms and in their communities, it will enable them to both thrive in a changing climate and contribute to tackling its causes.
Are We Seeing Glimmers of a Healthier, Even Regenerative, Economic System?
Last week at SB’22 San Diego, over 1K sustainability practitioners have converged to share insights, tools, inspiration and opportunities for collaboration with the goal of building a regenerative future for all. Here, we hear highlights from our day four keynotes, which featured glimpses into the next frontier in finance and capitalism.
Fair Targets for ESG Performance: An Introduction
To transform ESG reporting from a feel-good marketing exercise into a forward-looking financial assessment of a corporation’s environmental, social and business risk and an ESG-risk-aware capital-budgeting strategy, ESG targets need to reflect non-market stakeholder needs at a local, regional and global level. We call these kinds of multi-tiered, multi-stakeholder targets ‘fair.’
Quantifying the Benefits of Women’s Empowerment: The Missing Metric for Game-Changing Climate Action
Cross-Posted from New Metrics. The W+ Standard is the first globally recognized framework that measures and monetizes women’s empowerment. Empower Co. is engaging with companies keen to cement their women’s-empowerment programs with robust data — and shift the mindset around climate action from mitigation to net positivity.
Moonshot Disability Accelerator Fund on Mission to Close the Disability Wealth Gap
It will begin by funding 10 global accelerators working with early-stage entrepreneurs innovating at the intersection of disability and technology.
Seventh Generation Launches Comprehensive Framework for Calculating Corporate Climate Impacts
Cross-Posted from New Metrics. “We seek to push the practice of corporate environmental reporting dramatically forward and advance a far more complete vision of authentic climate leadership free of finger-pointing. We consider this report a summons to arms and a call to action both swift and sweeping.” — Chief Impact Officer Ashley Orgain
First-of-Their-Kind Frameworks Raise Bar on Sustainability Transparency of Meat, Alternative Proteins
Cross-Posted from Marketing and Comms. 2 new reporting frameworks from FAIRR and Good Food Institute enable alternative meat, seafood, eggs and dairy companies to more accurately assess their climate, biodiversity, nutrition and other ESG impacts.
Personal Impact Measurement Tool Helps Users Improve Their Shopping 'Karma,' Drive Individual Climate Action
Cross-Posted from Behavior Change. Karma Wallet is banking on a recipe of behavior change, fintech and systems change to create a critical mass of consumers able to turn intent into action and pressure brands to make the broader changes the world needs.
Diageo Innovation Fund to Help Smallholder Farms in Africa Withstand Climate Change
Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. Diageo has committed to cultivating solutions to enable the farmers in its African supply chain — who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of increasing droughts and floods — to maintain steady farming cycles and income in a climate-changing world.
Ethical Foods Fund to Support Early-Stage, Values-Based Canadian Companies Driving Future of Sustainable Food
The fund will support sustainable food production via early-stage, values-based food innovators — from the ethical treatment of employees on farms and in factories, to the end of the food production cycle with compostable packaging.
Aleph Farms Joins AIM for Climate with $40M Investment to Advance Cellular Agriculture
Cross-Posted from Product, Service & Design Innovation. Cellular ag technologies address two of the initiative’s four focal areas of innovation for 2022; they could be a key tool for reducing food’s environmental impact and enabling greater food security.
The Hidden Cost of Cryptocurrency and NFTs
Companies with significant ESG commitments to shareholders will not be able to hold investments in cryptocurrencies or NFTs and still meet their sustainability goals; public companies with these technologies in their portfolios will be responsible for the emissions created by their investments.
Coca-Cola Bottler Launches Partnerships to Optimize Its Supply Chain — on a Financial and a Molecular Level
Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler and one of the world's leading consumer goods companies, has embarked on two potentially game-changing, collaborative initiatives to fast-track sustainability innovation throughout its supply chain.
Why Higher Commodity Prices Hurt Smallholder Farmers — and What Can Be Done to Help
By investing in SMEs in developing countries, we aim to help them enhance their businesses for the benefit of smallholders — proving they are credible to the local banking sector along the way. Ultimately, our core purpose is to tilt the economic balance back toward smallholders; so they can make a decent living in normal times and survive inevitable price shocks.
1st Indigo Ag Credit Issuance Connects Farmers to Multibillion-Dollar Voluntary Carbon Market
Industry-leading carbon-farming program provides new revenue stream for farmers and an immediately accessible, scalable nature-based solution to climate change for businesses.
Blended Finance Schemes Are Catalysing Real Impacts in Sustainable Development
To deliver the rapid decarbonisation and conservation we need, and to enable communities to grow in a sustainable way, we have to catalyse new finance for good — and we need to maximise that impact, so we know how much good is achieved and how we can improve.
ESG 2.0: From Corporate Proclamations and Doing Less Harm to Putting Our Money Where Our Mouths Are
“ESG in its fullest form hasn’t really been done yet. Its full potential is at the intersection of ESG and impact investing, where we can move from passive divesting and screening out of negative investments to proactive investments that generate long-term, sustainable profits.” — Alix Lebec
