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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.

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Apparel Brands Urged to Understand, Disclose Water Risks

A new report from Planet Tracker analyzed nearly 4K filings from 29 major apparel brands and found them worryingly dry.

The Window of Vitality: How Great Businesses Balance Efficiency, Resilience

Mired in short-termism, many investors and company bonus structures incentivize optimizing for cost and efficiency. The lesson from nature: Successful organizations stay within their own window of vitality by understanding and balancing the tension between efficiency and resilience.

Latin Americans Are Embracing Plant-Based Foods — a Growing Opportunity for Investment

Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. Food investors and entrepreneurs would do well to mark the major focus on plant-based protein innovation happening for our neighbors to the South.

First Roadmap for Financiers Implementing a ‘Just Transition’ Launched at COP28

The new guidance will support the global financial sector in embedding just-transition practices in their operations to ensure a climate transition that leaves no one behind.

New Carbon Accounting Alliance Seeks Industry Standardization, Regulation to Support Net-Zero Transition

The launch includes a call to action for organizations worldwide to use the tools of carbon accounting to drive transition plans and direct emission reductions.

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California Climate-Disclosure Laws Will Put the Spotlight on Governance

Let’s use the momentum behind the new mandates to rethink the corporate structures that hold back environmental and social progress.

Supporting Farmers in Landlocked Countries to Enter the Nutraceuticals Market

Overcoming commodity dependence is a complex challenge. Here are steps that brands, impact investors and governments can take to help smallholder farmers in LLDCs benefit from the nutraceuticals market.

4 Keys to Accurately Accounting for Your Company’s Impacts on Nature

This week at SB’23 San Diego, Context Nature shared guiding principles with which business can bridge nature and finance strategies; and three companies shared lessons learned from enacting their own biodiversity commitments.

Growing a Better World Together: Why I Joined the Financial Sector

Throughout my career, I learned that climate risk equals financial risk and the financial sector has a responsibility to help clients transition to more sustainable practices for the benefit of people, planet and profit. Enter Rabobank.

New Report Urges Insurance Companies to Stop Underwriting Climate Change

‘Underwriting Our Planet’ finds that rather than addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, many economic activities underwritten by insurance companies actually fuel the twin crises.

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L’Oréal Launches €15M Climate Emergency Fund

The new endowment fund will reach vulnerable communities facing greatest disaster risk through partnerships with both local disaster-relief organizations and international NGOs.

Study Shows Stronger ROI for Companies with High ESG Ratings

Kroll analyzed data on over 13K companies across industries and found that those with better ESG ratings outperformed their peers with lower ratings; globally, ESG leaders had annual returns of 12.9% vs 8.6% for laggards.

ISSB Urged to Prioritize Human and Worker Rights in Next Set of Reporting Standards

Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. The investor letter asserts that the financial materiality of human rights-related topics – and the critical role of human rights due diligence in identifying business risks – has never been clearer, and that ‘investors are in dire need of a unified social disclosure framework.’

A Defiant Optimist: How One Woman Has Reshaped Finance to Fight Global Inequality

“By valuing and giving a voice to [women of color], and recognizing their potential as solutions and stabilizers, impact investing is a powerful way to build systemic resilience … and reduce the negative impact of climate change on everyone.” — Durreen Shahnaz

Landmark Report Sets Out 7 Steps for Embedding Nature, Equity Goals into Global Financial Activity

Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. The Taskforce on Nature Markets asserts an unprecedented shift towards accurately pricing nature in global markets must occur to deliver on nature, climate and equity goals.

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At Long Last, There’s a Metric for Quantifying the Monetary Value of Sustainability Investments

Cross-Posted from New Metrics. Astanor Ventures’ Impact Multiple on Investment methodology translates the expected and realized benefits of invested-in products or services into monetary terms — helping investors make more informed, strategic decisions.

What Is the Role of Climate Scenarios in the Investment Process?

Increased availability of a wide range of plausible climate scenarios can help steer financial institutions away from group think and reduce the long-term financial risks of climate change.

What CFOs Need to Know About Fast-Emerging Biodiversity-Credit Markets

When companies invest in biodiversity credits, the ‘unitization’ of biodiversity outcomes in the form of credits takes the guesswork out of designing the investment. But they are not intended to offset an equivalent, negative impact on biodiversity elsewhere.

Climate Vault Aims to Spur Climate Action by Locking Away Carbon Permits

The organization works to purchase and vault CO2 permits from regulated cap-and-trade compliance markets — thus keeping major polluters from using them to emit and, theoretically, stopping pollution before it happens.

WWF: Funding Locally Tailored Food-System Innovation Is Essential for a Healthier, Abundant Planet

WWF’s new framework guides improved investment of innovation funds in food systems, so investors and businesses can work with local communities and stakeholders to identify the right innovations for the right impact in the right place.

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