As Charlotte Yonge sorted through boxes of her grandmother’s things this year, she found a pile of handwritten share records from the 1970s. It triggered a memory: when she was young, Yonge had always seen women as the ones who invested, as her grandmother had throughout her life. But as she grew older, Yonge realised she was relatively alone in…

Asset manager’s Head of Fixed Income hopes market expansion will eliminate need for the purely green bond-focused vehicle within the next decade. The tenth anniversary of Nordic asset manager Storebrand’s Green Bond Fund offers a yardstick for the significant growth of and interest in green, social, sustainability, sustainability-linked and transition (GSS+) bonds during the last decade. Launched in 2015, the…

2024 was a big setback for net zero coalitions. Many asset managers, especially US asset managers, left the Net Zero Asset Manager Initiative and Climate Action 100+. The UN-convened Net Zero Insurance Alliance was completely disbanded.  This is a drastic change from just four years ago when there was great hope and enthusiasm that the finance sector could change the world if…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have abandoned plans to impose stricter rules for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the financial services sector to “avoid duplication and unnecessary costs”. In 2023, the FCA and PRA launched a consultation on proposed rules and expectations which they said was aimed at improving diversity and inclusion in regulated…

Traditional fossil fuel markets face an expected oversupply in 2025 because multiple factors like technological advancements and geopolitical changes, combined with new environmental policies, are driving a transformation in the energy sector. The rapid expansion of solar power, wind energy and battery storage systems shows no signs of slowing down. Even though geopolitical uncertainty exists, investments in these sectors will…