by Elizabeth di Bonaventura, Senior Institutional Relationship Associate, Domini Impact Investments.
The road less traveled has always been the path I’ve found myself on in life, whether intentionally or not. As a young girl, I did not grow up believing that I would have a career in finance. I was beguiled by misconceptions that the field was too difficult and the bar for entry too insurmountably high. Even more daunting was the lack of representation of women within the financial sector.
About Sustainable / or ESG Investing: We have traveled a far distance over the past four decades, beginning with “ethical” and “faith-based” and the more frequent “socially responsible investing” (SRI), morphing over time into “sustainable & responsible investing” (still SRI for the traditionalist) and on to “ESG investing”. And now to… how about “investing”? That is, just plain investing, as our friend and colleague Erika Karp, CEO of Cornerstone Capital Group has been long saying.
Setting the Pace & Shaping the 2021 Sustainability Conversation
At the beginning of the calendar year, the CEO of the world’s largest asset management firms sends his annual “guidance” missive to the Chief Executive Officers of publicly-traded firms. Here is where we stand, here is what we expect, is the tone set by this global manager of investors’ assets.
On January 20, 2021, the transfer of power in the Executive Branch went forward, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, and President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris assumed the offices of the highest elected officials in the nation.
This will be the “climate administration,” President Biden has declared. And within a week a comprehensive “whole of government” approach was announced, with sweeping changes that present both risk and opportunity to the corporate community and the capital markets.
Countries around the world are tuning in and exploring ways to guide companies to report on ever more important climate related disclosures. Embracing of the Task Force recommendations is a key policy move by governments.
After the 2008 global financial crisis, the major economies that are member-nations of the “G20” formed the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to serve a think tank and forum for the world’s leading developed countries to develop strong regulatory, supervisory, and other financial sector policies.
Seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the great promise of the 21st Century – the Paris Accord. Can you believe, it is now five years on (260 weeks or so this December) since the meeting in the “City of Lights” of the Conference of Parties (“COP 21”, a/k/a the U.N. Paris Climate Conference). This was the 21st meeting of the global assemblage focused on climate change challenges.
Seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the great promise of the 21st Century – the Paris Accord. Can you believe, it is now five years on (260 weeks or so this December) since the meeting in the “City of Lights” of the Conference of Parties (“COP 21”, a/k/a the U.N. Paris Climate Conference). This was the 21st meeting of the global assemblage focused on climate change challenges.
Looking back 90+ years to the 1920s, corporate financial disclosure was in essence, a joke. (Why, said one public company leadership, would we ever tell investors what our real financial condition is!) Financial reporting was voluntary! And then…came the 1929 market crash.
by Jennifer Coombs, associate professor at the College for Financial Planning and the founder of the financial blog, GradMoney. She is the creator, lead author, and lead instructor for the Chartered SRI Counselor™ (CSRIC™) designation program
