Dr Rory Sullivan, CEO of Chronos Sustainability, identifies four priority themes for asset owners in 2024. Corporate governance, climate change, biodiversity and nature, and human rights are all still jostling for attention at the top of the ESG agenda for asset owners. With presidential or general elections scheduled in many countries (including South Africa, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the US)…
Best and worst performing sustainable funds of 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) was the big player in the top sustainable funds of last year, with nine of the ten best performers having technology company NVIDIA in their ten largest holdings – making up 8.8% of the portfolios on average. NVIDIA’s focus on AI has boosted it to a market capitalisation of $1.48trn at the time of writing. Morningstar Direct…
GRI Launches New Biodiversity Reporting Standard
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), one of the leading organizations promoting standardized ESG reporting, announced today the publication today of “GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024,” a major update to its Biodiversity Standard, aimed at enabling companies to publicly disclose on their most significant biodiversity impacts, and how they are managed. The new reporting standard comes as businesses and financial institutions increasingly…
Circularity Startup CheckSammy Raises $45 Million to Scale Waste Diversion & Sustainability Solutions
Circularity startup CheckSammy announced today that it has raised $45 million through a strategic investment aimed at supporting its services and solutions for companies to meet sustainability goals including waste diversion and carbon reduction. Founded in 2018, Texas-based CheckSammy provides on-demand, same-day bulk waste removal and bespoke sustainability services, including connecting independent waste haulers and service providers with enterprise customers…
Nextgen EV Battery Developer Sion Power Raises $75 Million
EV battery technology developer Sion Power Corporation announced today that it has raised $75 million in a Series A funding round, with proceeds aimed at supporting the commercialization of its proprietary next generation technology for electric vehicles. Sion Power will use the funds to achieve technical and market validation of its technology. The company plans to build a fully automated…
Deloitte, Circle Economy Consulting Partner to Help Businesses Tap Circular Economy Opportunities
Deloitte and Circle Economy Consulting announced the launch of a new partnership, aimed at helping businesses realize growing circular economy opportunities and achieve sustainability goals. Circle Economy Consulting is a newly formed impact consulting firm, spun off from circular economy-focused impact organization Circle Economy Foundation. Alongside the new partnership, Deloitte and Circle Economy Foundation released a new study, the Circularity…
EFRAG Releases Proposed EU Sustainability Reporting Standards for Small Companies
The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) announced the release of new exposure drafts containing proposed sustainability reporting standards for small and medium enterprises, marking the next step in the establishment of a new sustainability reporting system in Europe under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The CSRD is aimed as a major update to the 2014 Non-Financial Reporting…
Morgan Stanley rolls out trio of ESG strategies
Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched three actively-managed Article 8 funds. The new strategies – MS INVF Calvert Global Equity Fund, the MS INVF Calvert Global High Yield Bond Fund and the MS INVF Calvert US Equity Fund – all consider ESG factors as part of their investment processes. The strategies will be run by Calvert Research and Management, a…
TwentyFour upgrades fund to SFDR Article 9
London-based TwentyFour Asset Management, a fixed income boutique affiliated with Vontobel, has upgraded one of its funds to Article 9 under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). The Luxembourg SICAV fund – Vontobel Fund – TwentyFour Sustainable Short Term Bond Income – will transition from Article 8 to Article 9 effective from 26 January 2024, aiming to invest in…