September 2026 Newsletter
News & Commentaries by Ron Robins
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New September Podcast
September 2026 Sustainable Stock and ETF Picks
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Sustainable Investment: Growth Despite The Headwinds. “84% of asset owners have taken sustainability considerations into account, in some form, up from 73% in 2025. The vast majority (85%) expect to increase the extent to which they consider sustainability factors or their use of sustainable investment products.”
[COMMENTARY] As per an earlier post, we have more confirmation that asset managers and investors generally, globally, are looking towards much less reliance on a fossil fuel-based economy.
Sustainable Investment: Growth Despite The Headwinds, by FTSE Russell® and posted on Seeking Alpha, September 23, 2026, UK.
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Operation Noah releases ‘Investing with Purpose’ report for churches. “A new report from Operation Noah – ‘Investing with Purpose’ – is offering practical pathways for Church investment in climate solutions.”
[COMMENTARY] The report says many church groups have been reluctant, for many reasons, to invest in climate-benefiting ways. This report by a Catholic organization responds to those concerns.
Operation Noah releases ‘Investing with Purpose’ report for churches, by Operation Noah, September 23, 2026, UK.
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Sustainable Funds Outperform, Hit Record AUM in H1 2026: Morgan Stanley. “Sustainable investment funds outperformed their traditional fund peers in the first half of 2026, with stronger performance in every major region, according to a new report* from the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, which also found that sustainable investment AUM grew during the period to reach a record $4.2 trillion at the end of Q2.”
[COMMENTARY] The facts are that most major investment groups, as well as individuals, globally, don’t buy the Republican Party thesis that a fossil-fuel economy will dominate humanity’s future.
Sustainable Funds Outperform, Hit Record AUM in H1 2026: Morgan Stanley, by Mark Segal, ESG Today, September 16, 2026, USA.
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The bargain between shareholders and companies is being eroded. “And in the US, 36 per cent of new listings in the first half of 2026 had dual-class shares, the highest share recorded since the Council of Institutional Investors began tracking this in 2017.”
[COMMENTARY] This is an important article. It’s written by the chief executive of Norges Bank Investment Management — a huge investment manager. Shareholder rights are being diluted almost everywhere. Yet, rebellion against such changes is muted!
The bargain between shareholders and companies is being eroded, by Nicolai Tangen, September 28, 2026, The Financial Times, UK.
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Three ways businesses can make sustainability measurable. “Companies across sectors are increasingly incorporating sustainability related performance measures into executive evaluation frameworks, ensuring that leadership decisions consider long term business resilience alongside financial performance.”
[COMMENTARY] I’ve long argued that ESG and sustainability initiatives must, where possible, be measurable. Furthermore, measurements, where feasible, should be uniform across companies in the same or similar industry!
Three ways businesses can make sustainability measurable, by Zeljka Davis Vorih and Maha Alnuhait, September 22, 2026, World Economic Forum, Switzerland.
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Can mining ever be sustainable? “The quality of each company’s practices, the materials it produces and the role those materials play in the wider economy all matter. These can vary, and it’s possible to identify companies with strong operational practice and those that produce critical minerals for the transition.”
[COMMENTARY] This is a good and timely article. The concerns of ethical and sustainable investors regarding potentially damaging environmental effects of mining are warranted. However, mining today is undergoing a huge transition to manage those effects.
Can mining ever be sustainable? By Dominic Rowles, September 16, 2026, Hargreaves Lansdown, UK.
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Investors put governance at the heart of AI sustainability debate. “Investors are increasingly treating governance rather than climate factors as the key sustainability issue for AI companies as warnings from leading researchers grow louder and potential IPOs loom for sector leaders Anthropic and OpenAI.”
[COMMENTARY] As concerns about AI’s capabilities grow, investors are focusing on governance as a key driver of board and company performance.
Investors put governance at the heart of AI sustainability debate, by Tessa Walsh, September 18, 2026, International Financial Review, UK.
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How AI could raise the standard of corporate governance. “By expanding what boards can analyse, question and anticipate, AI does more than offer directors a new tool. It may raise the standard of what boards can reasonably be expected to know – and, ultimately, what constitutes effective oversight.”
[COMMENTARY] Usually, a company’s executives have much more information on corporate activities than their board of directors. This article says AI can close that information gap; hence, boards could make better decisions.
How AI could raise the standard of corporate governance, by Helle Bank Jørgensen and Marlen Heide, September 15, 2026, World Economic Forum, Switzerland.
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The Market for ESG Ratings. “Our main finding is that competition can lead rating providers to become generalists even when specialization would produce more information. This distortion is most likely to arise when investors care very strongly about ESG performance.”
[COMMENTARY] The researchers behind this paper provide valuable insights into the ESG ratings industry.
The Market for ESG Ratings, by Ehsan Azarmsa (University of Illinois Chicago) and Joel Shapiro (University of Oxford), September 9, 2026, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, USA.
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The Rise of Faith-Based ETFs. “For generations, religious individuals and institutions have sought to align financial resources with moral and religious principles. What is changing is the range of investment structures available to implement those principles at scale.”
[COMMENTARY] This article provides a good overview of faith-based investing in the U.S. today.
The Rise of Faith-Based ETFs, by Sage Advisory, September 8, 2026, ETF Trends, USA.
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Rethinking the rush to regulate ESG rating providers. “Stringent new rules for environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings reveal a fundamental misreading of what these ratings are for, and regulatory resources could be better directed elsewhere, argue Deepak Kumar, Gourishankar Hiremath, Jitendra Mahakud and Sangeeth Selvaraju.”
[COMMENTARY] I fully agree with the arguments offered in this article. In particular, ESG analysis does not offer the same exactness or decisiveness as financial statement analysis. Nor should it. ESG analysis is purposely varied, with many differing perspectives. It should not be pigeonholed.
Rethinking the rush to regulate ESG rating providers, Commentary, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics, UK.
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Strategic: Go sustainable. “Sustainable strategies can play an important role within broader portfolios by providing exposure to long-term economic and investment trends.”
[COMMENTARY] This article, from a renowned international bank, makes a cogent case for sustainable investing. It’s well worth reading.
Strategic: Go sustainable, August 21, 2026, UBS Wealth Management USA.
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SEC to cede control over shareholder resolutions to US states. “The US financial markets watchdog is taking further steps to withdraw federal backing for investors to file resolutions at corporate AGMs, a move with significant implications for US shareholder democracy.”
[COMMENTARY] This rule is likely to deter many potential proxy resolutions! Because each state will likely have different rules, the complexity of legal rules posed by this possible change could restrict many shareholders from taking worthy actions.
SEC to cede control over shareholder resolutions to US states, by Mona Dohle, September 2, 2026, Net Zero Investor, USA.
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