$RIBT The Feds’ 2,000-Page Prod for Sustainable Investing
ESG investing "environmental, social, and corporate governance", I believe RIBT fits this, but few know yet.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-feds-2-0...1543621815
A nearly 2,000-page climate-change report issued by federal agencies predicts that, unless greenhouse-gas emissions are significantly reduced, we face a hot, grim future that could inflict an economic toll, gobbling up a tenth of U.S. gross domestic product by 2100. Some effects are already visible, the study contends: increased droughts, wildfires, coastal flooding, and faltering cropland fertility in some areas.
While the report has been repudiated by the White House, even though it was created by entities and scientists that the Trump administration oversees, it could encourage Wall Streeters concerned about the environment.
“There’s a bit of, ‘We’ve been telling you this for the last couple of years—where have you been?’ Not to be snarky, but we are facing a real crisis that needs to be addressed, not just from a policy perspective, but on an individual level,” says Christine Harada, former chief of sustainability for the Obama administration and president of i(x) investments, which invests for social good.
GMO Funds’ Jeremy Grantham, who has been ringing the alarm on global warming for years, emphasizes the human, rather than economic, impact outlined in the report. “This is not the end of the world for a rich country like the U.S.,” he says, “but it is something pretty close to that for Africa. The real risks are not plus 10% or minus 10% GDP—who gives a rat’s tail?—it’s whether the whole of Africa will become destabilized.”
The report could encourage more Wall Street shops to favor environmentally friendly investments. Indeed, Ted Roosevelt, a founding partner at Redwood Grove Capital, a firm based in Palo Alto, says this already has begun. “The divestment movement has put the fossil-fuel companies on notice,” he says.
U.S.-domiciled assets invested in environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, strategies rose 44% in the past two years, to $12 trillion, according to the latest data from US SIF Foundation, an organization that fosters sustainable investing. And 18 mutual funds and 27 exchange-traded funds have an “environmental focus,” according to Morningstar.
Fund managers who are considering climate change should “dig into the expected costs to both the ecosystem and the economy,” says Roosevelt. But many don’t. Instead, they merely buy data from research shops, create a ranking system, and underweight or overweight companies, based on environmental criteria specific to their industry. Harada urges investment professionals to tackle the issue on a personal level, too, by doing things such as buying electric cars and, more simply, turning off unneeded lights in their homes and offices.
Grantham doesn’t think Wall Street can save the world, but says that the proliferation of ESG funds is leading some corporations to act more responsibly. “You have 10 times the attendance at an ESG conference today than 20 years ago; every corporation understands this is an issue and can’t ignore it in public. They might in private, but every step helps,” he says.
Critics of climate forecasts argue that projections are merely that—projections. The report’s counterargument is that GPS-enabled apps can’t account for unknowns like a car wreck or rain, yet “we are confident that our trip is unlikely to take less than 20 minutes or more than half an hour—and we know where we are headed.” Wall Street’s environmentalists hope they can help the world change course before it reaches the destination described in the report.
No followup from this nice 19 month old Forbes story.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2017...4207556cd8
ESG investing "environmental, social, and corporate governance", I believe RIBT fits this, but few know yet.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-feds-2-0...1543621815
A nearly 2,000-page climate-change report issued by federal agencies predicts that, unless greenhouse-gas emissions are significantly reduced, we face a hot, grim future that could inflict an economic toll, gobbling up a tenth of U.S. gross domestic product by 2100. Some effects are already visible, the study contends: increased droughts, wildfires, coastal flooding, and faltering cropland fertility in some areas.
While the report has been repudiated by the White House, even though it was created by entities and scientists that the Trump administration oversees, it could encourage Wall Streeters concerned about the environment.
“There’s a bit of, ‘We’ve been telling you this for the last couple of years—where have you been?’ Not to be snarky, but we are facing a real crisis that needs to be addressed, not just from a policy perspective, but on an individual level,” says Christine Harada, former chief of sustainability for the Obama administration and president of i(x) investments, which invests for social good.
GMO Funds’ Jeremy Grantham, who has been ringing the alarm on global warming for years, emphasizes the human, rather than economic, impact outlined in the report. “This is not the end of the world for a rich country like the U.S.,” he says, “but it is something pretty close to that for Africa. The real risks are not plus 10% or minus 10% GDP—who gives a rat’s tail?—it’s whether the whole of Africa will become destabilized.”
The report could encourage more Wall Street shops to favor environmentally friendly investments. Indeed, Ted Roosevelt, a founding partner at Redwood Grove Capital, a firm based in Palo Alto, says this already has begun. “The divestment movement has put the fossil-fuel companies on notice,” he says.
U.S.-domiciled assets invested in environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, strategies rose 44% in the past two years, to $12 trillion, according to the latest data from US SIF Foundation, an organization that fosters sustainable investing. And 18 mutual funds and 27 exchange-traded funds have an “environmental focus,” according to Morningstar.
Fund managers who are considering climate change should “dig into the expected costs to both the ecosystem and the economy,” says Roosevelt. But many don’t. Instead, they merely buy data from research shops, create a ranking system, and underweight or overweight companies, based on environmental criteria specific to their industry. Harada urges investment professionals to tackle the issue on a personal level, too, by doing things such as buying electric cars and, more simply, turning off unneeded lights in their homes and offices.
Grantham doesn’t think Wall Street can save the world, but says that the proliferation of ESG funds is leading some corporations to act more responsibly. “You have 10 times the attendance at an ESG conference today than 20 years ago; every corporation understands this is an issue and can’t ignore it in public. They might in private, but every step helps,” he says.
Critics of climate forecasts argue that projections are merely that—projections. The report’s counterargument is that GPS-enabled apps can’t account for unknowns like a car wreck or rain, yet “we are confident that our trip is unlikely to take less than 20 minutes or more than half an hour—and we know where we are headed.” Wall Street’s environmentalists hope they can help the world change course before it reaches the destination described in the report.
No followup from this nice 19 month old Forbes story.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2017...4207556cd8
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