April 2026 Newsletter
News & Commentaries by Ron Robins
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New April Podcast:
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How Individual Investors Are Approaching Sustainable Investing in 2026. “Sentiment remains strong globally, even as average portfolio allocations edged down slightly. Expectations about returns continue to shape investment decisions.”
[COMMENTARY] This Morgan Stanley survey shows continuing and strong allocations to sustainable investing. With growing concerns about fossil fuel-related energy supplies due to wars, etc., sustainable investing that emphasizes renewable energy, ev’s, and so forth, could curry favour even among hard-core climate-skeptical Republicans!
How Individual Investors Are Approaching Sustainable Investing in 2026, by Institute for Sustainable Investing, Morgan Stanley, USA.
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The Deepening DEI Dilemma. “By emphasizing the positive effects of DEI on innovation, decision-making, employee productivity and retention, and overall corporate performance, companies can make the case that DEI is not just a moral imperative but a strategic advantage.”
[COMMENTARY] I believe that in some sectors of national activity, the case for DEI has sometimes been overdone. However, in business organizations, as the authors of this report/study illustrate, DEI can often be highly beneficial to corporate performance and profitability.
The Deepening DEI Dilemma, by David A. Katz and Loren Braswell, April 25, 2026, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, USA.
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The Hidden Benefit of ESG. “For investors, ESG scores can serve as useful signals of financial reporting quality, facilitating the identification of firms demonstrating superior financial accountability and transparency. For companies, ESG engagement is a governance tool that bolsters financial integrity and builds long‑term investor trust… [also] firms with stronger ESG performance are less likely to restate their financial statements.”
[COMMENTARY] Even with all the criticism of ESG, I’ve maintained that companies excelling in ESG practices excel operationally and financially. Here are some brilliant academics with yet more evidence for that viewpoint.
The Hidden Benefit of ESG, by Dov Solomon, Ido Baum, Rimona Palas, and Dalit Gafni, April 23, 2026, Faculty of Law Blogs, University of Oxford, UK.
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EQT Warns of Exit Risks for Alternative Energy Assets Held by PE. “EQT AB, Europe’s biggest private equity firm, says the path to exiting investments in clean-energy developers and operators faces a growing number of hurdles.
In many cases, such assets have become too big to be absorbed by the kinds of private or industrial buyers PE firms traditionally turn to when looking for an exit, according to Alex Darden, the head of EQT’s infrastructure investment for the Americas.”
[COMMENTARY] Exit risks, that is, cashing in one’s private equity (PE)investments, have always been potentially problematic. It seems that exit risks for PE alternative energy assets could be even worse.
EQT Warns of Exit Risks for Alternative Energy Assets Held by PE, by Coco Liu of Bloomberg News, April 18, 2026, Advisor Perspectives, USA.
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A return to arms: how asset owners are reevaluating their defence exclusions. “Some are ditching all screens, some are introducing stronger restrictions.”
[COMMENTARY] In this new era of wars, the ethics of investing in defence industries are topical for most ethical and sustainable investors. This article describes how some large investors are handling the subject.
A return to arms: how asset owners are reevaluating their defence exclusions, by Sophie Robinson-Tillett, April 16, 2026, IPE, UK.
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Are Companies Allowed to Put Ethics First? By Chris Gosier. “Companies are foregoing profits to do the right thing—a dicey decision that could bring lawsuits from shareholders, depending on how it’s presented, says Santiago Mejia, PhD, a professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business.”
[COMPANIES] This is an informative read on ethical behaviour in business.
Are Companies Allowed to Put Ethics First? By Chris Gosier, April 16, 2026, Fordham Now, USA.
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Why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push for net zero. “The government is obsessed with cleaning up electricity generation, even though it accounts for a far smaller total of our emissions – around 10%. So that obsession is pushing up the price of electricity and making it more expensive for people to switch to a heat pump or electric vehicle.”
[COMMENTARY] It’s now abundantly clear that adding renewable energy power generation without sufficient backup and storage is likely a recipe for higher energy costs.
Why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push for net zero, by Justin Rowlatt, April 15, 2026, BBC, UK.
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Internal Audit Gap Grows in ESG Disclosures. “Every company running a serious internal audit program has two sets of findings: what the audit team documents internally, and what the organization communicates externally. In most operating areas, those two records are close enough that the gap doesn’t become a problem. In environmental compliance, they’re diverging — and enforcement agencies have started to notice.”
[COMMENTARY] This could be an issue for investors! How do we know that what is being reported is really the whole story?
Internal Audit Gap Grows in ESG Disclosures, by Marybeth Collins, April 13, 2026, E+E Leader, USA.
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How executives’ long-termism shapes ESG performance: dual-channel shareholder governance. “We find that executives’ long-termism positively affects corporate ESG performance, and the relationship is strengthened by minority shareholder activism and common institutional ownership.”
[COMMENTARY] It’s often believed that the ‘short-termism’ of many corporate leaders leads to long-term organizational and financial harms. This study, though focused on long-term ESG performance, could lend credibility to that argument.
How executives’ long-termism shapes ESG performance: dual-channel shareholder governance, by Ning Xu, Di Zhang, Guangjian Liu, and Shujun Wang, Journal of Business Research, Volume 210, May 2026, 116175.
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Internal Audit Gap Grows in ESG Disclosures. “Every company running a serious internal audit program has two sets of findings: what the audit team documents internally, and what the organization communicates externally. In most operating areas, those two records are close enough that the gap doesn’t become a problem. In environmental compliance, they’re diverging — and enforcement agencies have started to notice.”
[COMMENTARY] This could be an issue for investors! How do we know that what is being reported is really the whole story?
Internal Audit Gap Grows in ESG Disclosures, by Marybeth Collins, April 13, 2026, E+E Leader, USA.
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Featured Book
Note: Ron Robins is an Amazon Associate. He thus earns fees from qualifying book or merchandise purchases referred from this website.
The Little Book of Impact Investing: Aligning Profit and Purpose to Change the World (Little Books. Big Profits). “Priya Parrish’s The Little Book of Impact Investing is a terrific guide to investing in for-profit, positive impact companies. Drawing from her long experience, Parrish shares actionable advice to help others succeed in this dynamic segment of the global impact investing field.”―DEBRA SCHWARTZ, Managing Director of Impact Investments, MacArthur Foundation
For more information, visit The Little Book of Impact Investing: Aligning Profit and Purpose to Change the World (Little Books. Big Profits) on Amazon. Wiley; 1st edition (October 15, 2024).
© 2026 Ron Robins, Investing for the Soul
