As carbon emissions continue to rise investors need to innovate on the nature of investment mandates says Colin le Duc, a founding partner of Generation Investment Management. He says real world impact is going in the wrong direction, even though sustainable investing is booming, and the credibility of transition plans is under scrutiny.

Tom Nelson, head of thematic equity at Ninety One, talks to Conexus Financial managing editor Julia Newbould about the extent of the shock to energy markets through the Ukraine War and how it will impact the transition to clean energy and how portfolio managers can invest in renewables and achieve carbon zero targets in this volatile market.

Most rhetoric about mitigation has focused on new energy infrastructure technologies but there is no longer time left to deploy them at sufficient scale. Mitigation will be delivered almost entirely by closing processes that cause emissions by their chemistry and electrifying everything else, and we won’t have as much electricity as we want. This realisation shines a new light both on valuation and on investment risk. Markets cannot currently value climate risk as corporate plans depend mainly on untestable rhetoric. Julian Allwood, who is Professor of Engineering and the Environment and leads the largest and most inter-disciplinary research group in the University of Cambridge dedicated to climate mitigation, has proposed a new mechanism (ZERPAs) to allow proper valuation, based on pre-purchasing access to the scare resources required to deliver mitigation. This, or some similar instrument, will allow investors to revalue assets in the light of future resource scarcity, and to reallocate capital towards businesses compatible with more achievable pathways to real mitigation.

Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of Cambridge; founder and chair of the Centre for Climate Repair in the university and chair of the climate crisis advisory group as well as senior strategy adviser to the President of Rwanda. He was the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser from 2000-2007 and the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change from 2013-2017. In February this year he was awarded the David and Betty Hamburg AAAS award for Science Diplomacy.

Dealing with inflation while balancing fragile economies will require careful use of monetary policy, balanced with green infrastructure spending and investment in ongoing pandemic prevention measures. Amanda White speaks to renowned economics professor Warwick McKibbin about how the methods central banks use to predict inflation are breaking down, and that world governments will need to look beyond monetary policy and incorporate fiscal and climate policy levers to balance fragile economies.

Amanda White, director of institutional content at Conexus Financial, dives into the past, present and future of responsible investment with PRI’s founding executive director, James Gifford, and current outgoing CEO, Fiona Reynolds. In this candid conversation, they reflect on the genesis of the PRI mission, where we are today and trends and challenges going forward for the responsible investment industry from both an integration and impact lens.

China is a simultaneous threat and an opportunity for investors. This discussion looks at how to navigate a worsening geopolitical situation and what it means for economic growth. Is the current course a steady state, or are big shocks, for the better or for the worse, possible and even likely?

The big difference between the vaccine rollouts and the scale of the stimulus measures across the world could result in a K-shaped global economic recovery, with much of the developed world booming but poorer countries continuing to struggle. However the west, with its growing debt, is not out of the woods either. What does the global economy look like post-crisis?

The CEO of CalPERS Marcie Frost has a big year ahead. Not only is the fund still searching for a CIO, but it will also conduct its four-yearly asset liability study this year. In this Fiduciary Investors Series episode, Marcie Frost speaks to Amanda White about the challenges of the top job at the largest fund in the US and how she works to make sure the “real story” of CalPERS gets told.

Nobel Prize winner Professor William Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics and Professor of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, explains his theory of ‘No Regrets’ whereby companies can integrate ESG at a level that brings real benefits for society but has limited impact on the corporate. Companies integrating ESG need to examine how they deal with the harmful externalities that they generate. Reducing the damaging spillovers of corporate activity like pollution without huge financial costs or damaging shareholder value lies at the heart of ESG integration, he says.

Sharan Burrow is calling on investors to do more to fix what she calls a broken labour market. In an impassioned call to delegates at “Sustainability Digital; A Planet in Trouble,” Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation which represents 200 million workers in 163 countries called on institutional investors to do more to protect workers rights. She says investors can choose to have an impact and shouldn’t put “making a profit” before “dehumanising workers.”

The impact of climate change is already material, said Woodwell Climate Research Center’s president and executive director, Philip Duffy. Speaking at the Top1000funds.com event, Sustainability: A planet in trouble, he warns that thawing permafrost could mean the loss of control of ever being able to manage climate change. Elsewhere, he urged investors to use their voice to bring about change.

Speaking at the Top1000funds.com event, Sustainability: A planet in trouble, renowned feminist Gloria Steinem tells institutional investors it is time to ditch the labels that describe our gender, class or ethnicity and urged the investment community to look at investments through the lens of gender, class and racial equality.

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White speaks to Simon Pilcher the chief executive of USS Investment Management, which manages assets for USS, the largest private pension scheme in the UK about the complexity of a sustainable strategy – including divestment and manager expectations – as well as the opportunistic investments the fund has made in private assets and credit.

With only a few days before the US election Amanda White speaks with Stephen Kotkin, the John P Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University, about what it would take to actually make America great again. Kotkin, an expert in international affairs and diplomacy, looks at the impact of the election results over the short and long term, examining the eroding of trust in institutions and the role of government in society; the moral societal degradation and the undermining of social solidarity; and America’s position in the world and the ongoing conflict with China.

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast, Amanda White talks to Jeff Wendling, chief executive of HOOPP – the C$94 billion Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan. In 2007, HOOPP moved to a liability driven investing approach, which included a large allocation to bonds and a lot of internal investment management. The approach helped the fund survive the global financial crisis and has served it well for the past 13 years. But now - with the COVID crisis and a very low interest rate environment - that approach is being revisited and the fund is looking to invest more in alpha generating assets. They speak about the evolution in the investing approach and the outlook for the macro economic environment with particular reference to inflation.

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast, Amanda White talks to Andrew Parry, head of sustainable investment at Newton Investment Management about the complexity of sustainable investment, and the role of the finance industry in guiding investors to choose companies that are adaptive and have relevant business models for a changing world.