Last day to register!
https://www.marquette.edu/business/companies/sustainability.php
Registration is now open for the Sustainability 2.0 Conference at Marquette University!
Monday, October 11, 2021, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Monaghan Ballroom, Alumni Memorial Union
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.
Keynote Speaker – Jeffrey Hales, Ph.D
Charles T. Zlatkovich Centennial Professor of Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin & Chair of the SASB Standards Board
To Register:
https://alumni.marquette.edu/sustainability
Website:
Tariq Fancy is right (and wrong)
Tariq Fancy, the former head of sustainable investing at Blackrock, has been making the rounds recently in the media as the ESG iconoclast alleging the “danger” of ESG and the “placebo effect” of ESG. His main point though is that ESG is no substitute for government policy (e.g. regulation). See CNBC for recent article:
While I applaud anyone for taking on any establishment, especially one that clearly has such a substantially large dog in this race, and I am in violent agreement with his baseline argument for well reasoned policy such as a carbon tax to bring about comprehensive systemic and aggressive action on climate (and without taking up the space of the three part essay on Medium he has written recently to convey his main arguments), I think he is missing the point in two ways:
- Climate change (and other sustainability challenges) require market-based solutions, and capital is an inextricable part of a market system. Fancy’s main argument is that ESG is a non-solution, and risks lulling people into a sense of complacency. The 90% of public companies that now feel compelled to report ESG metrics today to investors are likely to disagree. Furthermore, companies, not governments, will drive the technologies and solutions to these major issues, and these are funded by capital. Capital allocation will be determined by folks who must be equipped to understand ESG issues. Competition in the market will continue to reward those providing the best solutions. This is not to say there won’t be winners and losers, such is the nature of Shumpeter’s process of “creative destruction”, which underlies the general overall success of capitalism in addressing global challenges. Attacking ESG on this point is tantamount to saying don’t bother entering a race because you have no chance of taking first place, when success is likely to be defined not by a single winner, but by having most people simply enter the race.
- Businesses, consumers and governments are the source of the problem, and capital has successfully raised the issue in a way that scientists and environmentalists have struggled for decades to accomplish, and over a much shorter timeframe.
None of this, of course, absolves any of us from our personal responsibilities to become better managers, consumers, policymakers, voters or investors. One of my biggest complaints about the ESG movement is the “outsourced” nature of personal responsibility (e.g., the investor who invests in a general ESG kind-of-way and then turns around and purchases a gas-guzzling cigarette boat, without the attendant offsets, of course). Fancy is also right in saying that until we have comprehensive policy like a carbon tax, this will continue to be a game of “whack-a-mole”: Companies divesting of oil and gas assets (i.e. BHP as a recent example) while laudable, still see those assets going to another owner, who will continue extraction, so long as there is a market for fossil fuel. For fossil to be replaced entirely it must be priced out of the market by something else, ergo a carbon tax to drive and enforce that change. Graduation of a carbon tax can ease a transition, and give companies and households time to absorb that transition.
U.S. Authorities Probing Deutsche Bank’s DWS Over Sustainability Claims (WSJ)
Investigation by Justice Department, SEC follow allegations from ex-sustainability chief that firm overstated efforts on environment, other issues
Climate Change Policy Updates: Europe and China
Europe rolls out vision for a carbonless future, but big obstacles loom: An ambitious blueprint to reduce emissions 55 percent by 2030 promises tough haggling among 27 states, industry and the European Parliament (NYT)
The 12 legislative proposals presented on Wednesday are designed to reduce reliance on fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas; to expand the use of renewable-energy sources including solar, wind and hydro power to at least 38.5 percent of all energy by 2030; to force the faster development of electric cars with much tighter CO2 limits and hope to end the sale of all internal-combustion cars by 2035; and to support clean-energy options for aviation and shipping, which are prime polluters. For the first time, a carbon market will be established for road transportation and buildings.
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China set to launch the world’s largest emissions-trading program: Carbon market will double the share of global emissions covered under such systems (WSJ)
The carbon market will help the country lower greenhouse-gas emissions and achieve its goal of reaching peak emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality, or net zero emissions, by 2060, officials said at a news conference Wednesday. China is the world’s largest carbon emitter.
The program will initially involve 2,225 companies in the power sector. Those companies are responsible for a seventh of global carbon emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, according to calculations by the International Energy Agency…Over the next three to five years, the market is set to expand to seven additional high-emissions industries: petrochemicals, chemicals, building materials, iron and steel, nonferrous metals, paper, and domestic aviation.
SEC’s Lee looks to boards’ role in ESG (IR Magazine)
Commissioner eyes diversity and expertise to make the most of opportunities
Boards are central to companies addressing ESG issues and should look to enhanced diversity and expertise to fulfill this role in a positive way, according to SEC member Allison Herren Lee.
Lee explained that despite some progress, evidence suggests directors have been slow to understand the need to integrate climate and other ESG issues into governance practices. She cited a 2019 report as finding that only 6 percent of US director respondents picked climate change as a focus for the coming year and that 56 percent thought investor attention on sustainability issues was overblown.
‘The world’s largest asset managers and other institutional investors have been direct and vocal in conveying that they consider ESG material to their decision-making,’ Lee said in a speech earlier this week to the Society for Corporate Governance. ‘No matter the view of regulatory involvement in climate and ESG disclosures, directors must reckon with this growing consensus and growing demand from the shareholders who elect them.’
https://www.irmagazine.com/esg/secs-lee-looks-boards-role-esg
IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points (Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/climate-change-dangerous-thresholds-un-report
Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that global heating will trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems, which will lead to widespread and possibly irrevocable disaster, unless action is taken urgently.
The impacts are likely to be much closer than most people realise, a a draft report from the world’s leading climate scientists suggests, and will fundamentally reshape life in the coming decades even if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under some control.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing a landmark report to be published in stages this summer and next year. Most of the report will not be published in time for consideration by policymakers at Cop26, the UN climate talks taking place in November in Glasgow.
Does Enhanced Board Governance Make a Difference in Investment Returns? (CIS Webinar)
Thanks to our friends at Catholic Investment Services for hosting a terrific panel this past week on the topic of governance and investment performance! https://lnkd.in/ekiQass #governance #catholic #esg #endowments #Baird #foundations #investing #Marquette #Catholicinvestmentservices
Here Are America’s Top Methane Emitters. Some Will Surprise You. (NYT)
This article demonstrates the urgency to expand a regime of disclosure beyond public companies. In the absence of such measures, we are in effect “pushing the problem around” instead of addressing it.
Oil and gas giants are selling off their most-polluting operations to small private companies. Most manage to escape public scrutiny.
Johan Rockström: ‘We need bankers as well as activists… we have 10 years to cut emissions by half’ (The Guardian)
The eminent Earth scientist argues that we cannot just wait for the world order to change when it comes to tackling the climate crisis – we all have a duty to act now.
What makes a person like me most enthusiastic is that we are finally understanding that landing the Paris agreement is not just about eradicating fossil fuels, but about remaining within planetary boundaries. We need to keep carbon sinks in nature intact. We need to take care of the nitrogen, water and phosphorus cycles. Cop26 in Glasgow should be the first major climate conference where the climate agenda and the nature agenda come together. Let’s see if that succeeds but many forces are trying to push it to that point.