Where theory and practice meet: Sustaining and impactful, and especially for governance fiduciaries.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7123047495059865600/
Marquette was delighted to host executives and corporate leaders from companies and investment firms from across the country on October 24 at its annual Sustainability 2.0 Conference.
The event garnered its largest attendance ever.
Experts from around the world came together to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing organizations for a sustainable economy, now and in the future.
| ESG Courses at Marquette University are available for professionals to attend today! New environmental, social, and governance (ESG) courses to serve as preparatory courses for industry-driven certifications for accounting, investment professionals and ESG leaders, offered to professional learners in an asynchronous format, with one course on a hybrid online/live platform. The timeliness of these offerings coincides with the new SEC Climate Disclosure rules. In the U.S., not just public companies will be subject to the SEC requirements; “Scope 2 and 3” reporting will impact thousands of private companies, too, who contribute as suppliers and partners to these companies. Corporations are in a unique position today to elevate ESG practices in partnership with Marquette University. Prepare your organization today for the ESG requirements of tomorrow! Vouchers are included for participants to access the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential™ (FSA I, FSA II teaching to the SASB Standards) by the IFRS Foundation, and the Certificate in ESG Investing by the CFA Institute. |
Interesting take in this essay on what ESG is and isn’t in the current context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Robert Eccles.
We announced this week at the Marquette Sustainability 2.0 Conference our partnership with the Value Reporting Foundation (SASB) on a brand new Executive Education Sustainability Track program.
Now taking pre-registration for 2022! www.Marquette.edu/ESG #esg #sustainability
In 2019, Marquette Business held its first ever Responsible Investment Symposium, a successful event that brought together experts on sustainable investment practices from across the country. Since that time, more companies and organizations have adopted ESG and sustainability standards, creating an emerging paradigm for responsible and ethical business practice moving into the future.
This fall Marquette Business is excited to present the Marquette Sustainability 2.0 Conference. Expanded in size and scope, this conference brings together experts from across the country to discuss this new era of sustainability, featuring top thought leaders from academia and non-profit organizations, as well as chief sustainability executives from firms across a variety of industries.
To Register:
https://alumni.marquette.edu/sustainability
Website:
Important announcement on global sustainability standards:
Given the growing and urgent demand, the intention would be for the Trustees to produce a definitive proposal (including a road map with timeline) by the end of September 2021, and possibly leading to an announcement on the establishment of a sustainability standards board at the meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in November 2021.
“Sustainable finance and investing are taking off- and the world’s top business schools are climbing on board” — Wall Street Journal, 6/10/2019
An article in the Wall Street Journal recently declared that sustainable finance and investment education is making its way into higher education curriculum. But at Marquette, that change happened over a decade ago.
In the 2005-2006 academic year, Dr. Sarah Peck developed and taught the course Investment Ethics. Dedicated to understanding the central role that ethical concepts and consequences play in the practice of finance and specifically investments,this course was one of the first of its kind across the country. Taken up and taught by Dr. David Krause, director of the Applied Investment Management program thereafter, the course eventually landed in the capable hands of Dr. Christopher Merker, Instructor of Practice for Marquette University who has taught the course since 2009.
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2020/02/04/the-esg-debate-heats-up-four-more-challenges/
As fires continue to ravage Australia, debates among environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment professionals have been blazing as well.
One LinkedIn commentator, Dr. Raj Thamotheram, observed:
“There is so much ‘sdg washing’ and ‘impact washing’ going on at the moment, it drives me mad. We shouldn’t pretend that buying a share of XXX in the secondary market is changing the world. Change is slow and incremental. [My employer] isn’t perfect, we try to put our best foot forward, that inevitably leads us to be optimistic in describing what we do on ESG. But I try to be as brutally honest as I can. I’m amazed at how many peers say in the PRI reports that they do ESG integration across all asset classes 100%. Really? And if so, what does that actually mean?
“The answers aren’t easy but the challenge is urgent and CEOs of member firms need to mandate corrective action in 2020.
https://thunderbird.asu.edu/knowledge-network/wef
Thunderbird Convenes Global Leaders Across Sectors to Advance Climate Action
Davos, Switzerland – Thunderbird School of Global Management released a new report today projecting that the world can realize at least $1 trillion – $3 trillion dollars in market opportunities and $3 trillion – $5 trillion dollars in broader economic, social and environmental benefits per year by 2030.
Thunderbird’s Director-General and Dean, Dr. Sanjeev Khagram authored the new report and shared it at a cross-sectoral gathering hosted by Thunderbird with the Foundation for Climate Restoration in Davos during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.
“Together, we must rapidly deploy natural and technological solutions to remove gigatons of carbon dioxide from our air, restore ocean ecosystems, and preserve Arctic ice, while dramatically reducing emissions and adapting to climate change impacts,” said Dr. Khagram. “Climate restoration is the critical third pillar of climate action alongside climate mitigation and adaptation.”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3501203
Ethical-factor investing is investment decision-making that takes into account ethical factors. It includes faith-based investing, Environmental, Social or Governance (ESG) investing, and sustainable investing. It is becoming more and more widespread. This has occurred despite a lack of widely accepted definitions, performance metrics, or ethical preferences. There is increasing broad agreement that some ethical factors highlight business risks and opportunities in a predictable fashion, such as the effects of climate change, human capital needs, or corporate governance. Thus, more and more investors and enterprises are seeking to profit (including mitigating risks) from these factors in the same way they do from all business risks and opportunities. There are three prudent approaches to ethical-factor investing. The most widely used is the Incorporation approach. Such investing uses the value of doing the right thing to decide how to improve financial returns. Also, quite common is the Tie-Breaker approach. Such investing does the right thing if there no financial cost to doing so. Least common is the concessionary approach. Such investing does the right thing if it does not cost too much. Each of these approaches can be socially beneficial, i.e., improve the norms and behavior of enterprises in a cost effective manner. Investors can generate such benefits by funding enterprises with thinly traded securities whose preferred ethical-factor activities would not otherwise occur, or by participating in engagement campaigns to change the policies of widely traded securities in which they invest.