January 2021 Newsletter
News & Commentaries by Ron Robins
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Latest Podcasts:
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Latest Podcast: ESG Fund Stock Picks Under Biden “ESG Fund stock picks covered include Invesco Solar ETF, iShares Global Clean Energy ETF, ALPS Clean Energy ETF, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF, Xtrackers S&P 500 ESG ETF, First Trust Water ETF, SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF, Sunnova Energy International Inc., Canadian Solar Inc., SolarEdge Technologies Inc., First Solar, and Enphase Energy. More…”
— By Ron Robins
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2021 Global 100 ranking by Corporate Knights. “The 17th annual cohort of the world’s most sustainable corporations continue to soar above their peers.”
[COMMENTARY] This is one of the best lists of its kind for ethical and sustainable investors.
2021 Global 100 ranking by Corporate Knights, January 25, 2021, Canada.
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IIRC revises integrated reporting framework. “The International Integrated Reporting Council has published its revised Integrated Reporting Framework, incorporating some major changes since the IR Framework was first published in 2013.”
[COMMENTARY] Some form of standardization of corporate ESG and sustainability reporting continues to gain momentum. We’ll soon see even the US SEC on board!
IIRC revises integrated reporting framework, by Michael Cohn, January 21, 2021, Accounting Today, USA.
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Why ESG Funds Fail to Scale. “Many investment professionals might read these and believe that launching a new ESG investment firm or ESG offering will be an automatic success. Our analysis of the data shows that this is far from the truth: Most of these efforts fail.”
[COMMENTARY] This analysis suggests that starting a fund small, not quickly gaining significant assets, and an intensely competitive environment, are the main reasons why ESG funds remain small.
Why ESG Funds Fail to Scale, by Gabriel Karageorgiou and George Serafeim, January 11, 20121, Institutional Investor, USA.
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The ESG investment industry is broken. “Yet over time, I’ve come to realize that the ESG investment industry is by and large little more than a marketing mechanism, and will not lead to productive change…
In 2015-16, for instance, I noticed that one of the largest positions held by Generation Investment Management – co-founded by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and Goldman Sachs’ Asset Management head David Blood – was in Facebook. This is a company whose business is to collect every possible byte of their users’ data and resell the information to the highest bidder, regardless of the privacy violations that crop up along the way, which is a systematic (though legal?) violation of their users’ privacy.”
[COMMENTARY] I can see the point being made here. Nonetheless, a turn has been made in the financial markets that does promise change for the better concerning ethics and the sustainability of our world.
The ESG investment industry is broken, by James Rastehm January 1, 2021, The Globe & Mail, Canada.
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During Biden Administration, SEC will require Climate Change Risk and ESG Disclosure. “Public companies will be required to disclose climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions under President-elect Biden’s administration. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will institute rulemaking and guidance on the federal monitoring of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.”
[COMMENTARY] What a 180-degree turn this will be for the SEC and many public companies! See that DOL ruling restricting pensions investing according to ESG principles also eliminated soon!
During Biden Administration, SEC will require Climate Change Risk and ESG Disclosure, by Benjamin D. Stone, December 29, 2020, The National Law Review, USA..
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Featured Book
Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism, by Michael O’Leary and Warren Valdmanis, Harper Business 2020.
“If we want to save free market, enterprise economics and all the benefits it brings, we have to reform capitalism and the way corporations behave. The authors do a great job in explaining that this is not a wealth-bashing, negative agenda but a positive and exciting one. Business doing good is good business–and this book puts that beyond doubt.”–David Cameron, former prime minister of the United Kingdom.
