The council of Cambridge University has made a landmark commitment to addressing climate change in its £3bn (€3.4bn) endowment fund following months of pressure from students and staff.The council endorsed divestment from fossil fuels and encouraging environmental impact investment not only by the endowment fund (CUEF) but by investors generally.It also plans to hire an environmental,…
Category: climate change
Hermes is turning up the heat on climate change with carbon tool
Hermes Investment Management, the £33.6 billion manager, has been investing in the development of a number of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) tools for its fund managers and engagers to use to make enhanced investment decisions and to better inform engagement activities with companies on ESG matters.Hermes will be launching a carbon tool that allows…
Institutional investors call on government leaders to increase efforts on climate change – Pensions & Investments
A group of asset owners and managers representing more than $26 trillion in assets are calling on government leaders to step up their efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the average global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius; and also to support investments in a low-carbon economy, including phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies…
Disclosure Is About Risks And Opportunities, Not Politics
Felicia Jackson writes in Forbes: Climate and environmental information reporting is becoming mainstream. The focus on risk disclosure means it doesn’t matter whether you believe in climate change or not – what matters is transparency about corporate risk.As Richard Samans, Chairman, CDSB and Managing Director, Head of Policy and Institutional Impact at the World Economic…
Climate risk: Running out of time | Magazine | IPE
• Climate change is an existential risk whose elimination must become a corporate objective • Scenario analysis can be a powerful tool but can distract investors from engagement • Corporates need plans that address climate risk and outline moves to a low-carbon economy Source: Climate risk: Running out of time | Magazine | IPE
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Hits ‘Super-Majority’ Status | Bloomberg Law
Eighty-five percent of the nation’s largest public companies reported on climate change, diversity, and other sustainability issues in 2017, according to a March 20 study from the Governance & Accountability Institute. Sustainability reporting by companies in the S&P 500 index hit a majority for the first time in 2012 and has climbed steadily since then,…
Federal court will hold first-ever hearing on climate change science | McClatchy Washington Bureau
An unprecedented courtroom proceeding will be the first to put climate science on trial on March 21, 2018. The judge has asked for a tutorial, with briefings from both sides in a case brought by California cities against fossil fuel interests accused of covering up their role in contributing to global warming. Exxon and other…
Spring Awakening: Notes from This Year’s CII Meeting
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow reports on the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation Blog about CII’s spring meeting. The theme I heard most often at the annual spring meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors was ESG: environmental/social/governance risks and investment opportunities. The issues of how best to understand ESG and factor…
$1.6 Trillion Of Investments At Risk If Fossil Fuel Firms Fail To Heed Climate Targets
Energy groups risk wasting $1.6 trillion of investment by assuming that current emissions-cutting policies will not be tightened up in the light of the latest science and international climate change goals, according to the think tank Carbon Tracker.In a new report, Mind the gap: the $1.6 trillion energy transition risk, it warns that there is…
Chicago Treasurer to Use Portfolio to Promote Sustainability, Fight Climate Change
As New York City sues oil companies and plans to dump investments in fossil fuel production, Chicago Treasurer Kurt Summers is pushing to go even further and use the $7 billion portfolio of the nation’s third-largest city to help fight climate change and promote social progress. Summers is proposing to overhaul the city’s investment strategy…
