On this International Women’s Day, data providers and investors take stock of diversity progress at the executive-level.   An array of new reports has highlighted an increase in gender diversity on corporate boards, but also warn that global progress towards parity remained too slow, with sizeable disparities between countries.   Progress towards gender equality started from a low base, and more needs…

A selection of the week’s major stories impacting ESG investors, in five easy pieces. This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission delighted and disappointed as it sought to find the path of least resistance to its climate disclosure rules. Scope for improvement – In the same week that meteorologists confirmed the ninth consecutive month of record-breaking heat, US financial regulators…

Investors are currently under-estimating the correlated risks that Indigenous Rights can pose to their portfolios, according to Rebecca Adamson, Founder of First Peoples Worldwide. Investors face four hard truths in today’s finance markets: massive global demographic shifts; unprecedented demands on natural resources; trillion-dollar capital shifts taking place worldwide; and the accelerated spread of increased market volatility. Many forms of risk…

Senior Investment Manager Andy Turnbull explains how Federated Hermes’ UK Nature Impact Fund capitalises on the country’s flourishing voluntary carbon markets.  The UK voluntary carbon market (VCM) has expanded significantly in recent years, responding to surging investor interest in funding projects and increased corporate demand, driving an increase in the price of offsets. Two frameworks have been officially recognised and…

Federated Hermes’ Senior Investment Manager Andy Turnbull explains how the firm’s nature impact strategy capitalises on the UK’s flourishing voluntary carbon markets.  The UK voluntary carbon market (VCM) has expanded significantly in recent years, responding to surging investor interest in funding projects and increased corporate demand, driving an increase in the price of offsets. Two frameworks have been officially recognised…

James Phare, CEO of Neural Alpha, describes how AI can be used to understand the system-level risks arising from the UN’s Global Biodiversity Framework. Last week over 5,600 delegates from 190 countries gathered at the headquarters of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi for the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6). As the world’s top decision-making body…

Experts have welcomed the release of the much-awaited US climate disclosure requirements, but criticise divergence from other reporting regimes. A decision from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to drop Scope 3 emissions from its much-awaited climate disclosure rules will create uncertainty around climate risks posed by US companies, industry pundits have warned. In a landmark decision yesterday, three…

Trustees and advisors offered voluntary framework for embedding social factors in policies and processes; taskforce calls for regulators to set expectations. The Taskforce on Social Factors (TSF) has unveiled final guidance to help UK pension fund trustees improve their assessment of social factors in investment decisions and stewardship. The taskforce was set up by the UK government’s Department of Work…