December 2020 Newsletter
News & Commentaries by Ron Robins
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Latest Podcasts:
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Latest Podcast: Analysts Pick ESG Stocks to Buy! “ESG stocks to buy! According to analysts. These include: AES, Aptiv, LG Chem, LONGi Green Energy Technology, Siemens Energy, Infineon, Covestro, Deere, CJ Cheiljedang, Bluestar Adisseo, Ball Corp, SCG Packaging, Bureau Veritas, Verisk, Brookfield Renewable, First Solar, NextEra Energy, SolarEdge Technologies, Acuity Brands, Inc., United Rentals, Inc., Rockwell Automation, Inc, Union Pacific Corporation, and more….”
— By Ron Robins
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Doing Good: Where Sustainable Investing Gets It Wrong. “But does a higher ESG score for an investment product necessarily translate into doing more good?”
[COMMENTARY] Though not specifically addressed in this article — though I concur with its thesis — is that the services or products of a company are often left out of ESG sustainable performance ratings. So a few tobacco companies can still score highly on ESG according to some raters!
Doing Good: Where Sustainable Investing Gets It Wrong, by Lucie Tepl…, December 16, 2020, INSEAD, Singapore.
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ESG Standards Convergence Could Happen in Next 12 to 24 Months, Accounting Body Chief Says. “Reporting standards in the world of environmental, social and governance investing, long a thicket of competing frameworks, could converge within 12 to 24 months, said Janine Guillot, head of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board.”
[COMMENTARY] I believe such news of convergence in standards would be almost universally welcomed.
ESG Standards Convergence Could Happen in Next 12 to 24 Months, Accounting Body Chief Says, by Leslie P. Norton, December 14, 2020, Barron’s, USA.
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Dramatic increase in sustainability reporting due to generational attitudes, ESG investing. “Eighty percent of companies now report on sustainability, compared with only 12 percent in 1993.”
[COMMENTARY] This read provides a good appreciation of reasons for the growth and acceptance of sustainability reporting.
Dramatic increase in sustainability reporting due to generational attitudes, ESG investing, by Kristen Beckman, December 9, 2020, Benefits Pro, USA.
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5 Drivers Behind the Sustainable Investing Shift. “What is driving the shift to sustainable investing? This visual dashboard from Raconteur explains five key drivers, from generational shifts to investors’ preferred strategies.”
[COMMENTARY] This is a useful read for advisors and brokers to understand and grow their client base.
5 Drivers Behind the Sustainable Investing Shift, by Iman Ghosh, December 9, 2020, Visual Capitalist, Canada.
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The Future of ESG Is … Accounting? “That revolution is being led by the IFRS Foundation, the body that oversees the work of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in setting financial reporting requirements for most companies in the world, across more than 140 jurisdictions. (In the U.S., these requirements are set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB).
This past September, the IFRS Foundation proposed the creation of a parallel Sustainability Standards Board (SSB).”
[COMMENTARY] Now that ESG is mainstream, it’s about time that the accountancy organizations got involved in creating universal accounting standards for companies’ ESG reporting.
The Future of ESG Is … Accounting? By Richard Barker, University of Oxford, December 3, 2020, Harvard Business Review, USA.
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Asset managers complain over CFA’s proposed ESG standards. “CFA Institute’ plan to create a global ESG standard has triggered concern among some US and European asset managers already juggling overlapping regulations and rising costs in a crowded space.”
[COMMENTARY] These concerns are valid. It seems to me that perhaps the UN’s PRI should get involved with all the standards-setting organizations to coordinate the standards. A UN body just might be the best vehicle for doing that.
Asset managers complain over CFA’s proposed ESG standards, by Caroline Byrne, December 2, 2020, Corporate Secretary, USA..
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Featured Book
Values at Work: Sustainable Investing and ESG Reporting, by Daniel C. Esty and Todd Cort, Palgrave Macmillan 2020.
“In an effort to better understand the current status and movement of this dynamic field and to provide a practical reference for the growing pool of investors, financial advisors, companies, and academics seeking information on sustainable investing and ESG reporting, this edited book covers the latest trends, tools, and thinking.”
