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ESG investment is growing—or maybe exploding is more accurate. A recent Bloomberg analysis projects that worldwide ESG investing could hit £39 trillion by 2025. That’s a third of all global assets under management.

There is good reason for the rush to ESG, investors and companies are seeing powerful results. In reviewing close to 2200 empirical studies by scholars and investors, three researchers found that the large majority reported positive links between ESG and stable corporate financial performance.

And yet, there remains numerous challenges when analysing ESG performance for investment funds. The two most important?

Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. It’s imperative that businesses publicly discuss their plans to reduce emissions to encourage other organisations to take the same proactive approach towards climate action.

Water shortage is becoming a greater concern to individuals, the environment, and the economy. Therefore organisations are now looking into how their operations and supply chains affect water resources throughout the world. The organisational water footprint approach was developed to enable systematic measurement of water use at the firm level.

After last year’s rescheduling due to COVID-19, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference will occur in Glasgow between 1 November and 12 November 2021. Arguably, it could be more important than all prior meetings. The event arrives just three months after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming assessment report that made headlines worldwide. The hope of many (including us!) is that COP26 will yield crucial progress in reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If so, it will mark the latest chapter in a UN effort that dates back three decades.

Like many terms in the sustainability space, “materiality assessment” needs some unpacking. What is it? What needs to be assessed? Why? And once that’s done, then what?

In this episode, we chat with Mandhy Senewiratne, Director of Sustainability and Communications at Fyrefly Global Sustainability. Dan and Mandhy discuss the challenges within sustainability in Australia, her background in water and construction, why we all need to lead by example and more. Enjoy!

Often it’s difficult to make calls about a full portfolio’s ESG performance because different measurement strategies and frameworks mean you cannot easily gather, maintain, or analyse environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data across different portfolio companies.

In recent years, the phrase net zero has rapidly come to the forefront of climate change discussions. However, clear guidance is continuously being developed and changed making it difficult for organisations to understand where to begin. 

If you are based in the UK, SECR, which stands for Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting, will be an acronym that you see included in the plethora of sustainability frameworks and terms. With SECR compliance, businesses must annually report and disclose their energy and carbon information.