ESG

Viewsroom: BP, Delta shift out of climate neutral

20 February 2020

The British fossil-fuel giant and the largest U.S. airline have each pledged to effectively stop emitting carbon over time. The ambition is encouraging and puts them ahead of most rivals. But both fall short on all-important details. There’s plenty of runway to do better.

Coronavirus may come for boards and CEOs

20 February 2020

Infectious diseases are inevitable, but the financial havoc they wreak is not. Pandemics and efforts to contain them eat away an estimated 1% of GDP each year. Too many companies have failed to prepare, and shareholders ought not shrug off the Wuhan episode as a black swan.

JPMorgan’s days as governance bugbear are numbered

19 February 2020

Lead director Lee Raymond is a bete noire for investors worried about climate change. Yet shareholders consistently re-elect him, favoring the bank’s strong performance over its weak oversight. When CEO Jamie Dimon retires, JPMorgan’s exceptionalism ought to depart with him.

Mark Carney’s green push needs disclosure stick

14 February 2020

The outgoing Bank of England boss wants firms to say how they’ll cut carbon emissions. Ideally, he would use his new role as U.N. climate finance envoy to make such disclosure mandatory after November’s UK climate summit. But there’s only so much political capital to go round.

Schneider puts hefty price tag on green M&A

13 February 2020

The French industrial company has offered $1.5 bln for Germany's RIB Software, which tracks builders' power usage. The deal taps into the growing value of energy efficiency. But without cost savings, CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire needs punchy sales growth to justify a high premium.

BP leaves investors in a better sort of limbo

12 February 2020

New boss Bernard Looney has unveiled ambitions to largely eliminate the oil giant’s net carbon emissions by 2050. That’s more enlightened than most peers, and better than previous goals. But without a clear road map, shareholders can’t work out what the company will be worth.

Fashion’s climate Frankenstein has no off-switch

7 February 2020

Retailers like H&M are promising to slash their carbon footprint by using more recycled products. That’s good, but quick fixes like using sustainable cotton simply move the problem to landfills. Real change would come from tackling the throwaway culture that they represent.

Ryanair’s budget can stretch to truer green boasts

5 February 2020

The low-cost carrier has been ticked off for promoting itself as a low-carbon emitter. True, its planes are getting more efficient, but it’s still a huge polluter. Ryanair’s profitability means boss Michael O’Leary can afford to match rival easyJet in paying to offset its CO2.

UK has scope to stop green halo becoming red face

4 February 2020

Boris Johnson sacked the president of a global climate summit due to be held in Glasgow this year. To make COP26 a success, the prime minister requires a new big-hitter to cudgel nations into emissions cuts. He’ll also have to spell out how Britain can hit its own ambitious goal.

Shell faces slog to keep least-bad oil major title

30 January 2020

The Anglo-Dutch group’s emissions stance is tougher than peers, but rivals like BP may soon catch up. Shell could hold its lead by further embracing lower-yielding renewables. Yet that might add to pressures obliging CEO Ben van Beurden to slow the pace of a $25 bln buyback.

Do-gooder one-upmanship fuels optimism at Davos

23 January 2020

Corporate chiefs are brimming with purpose. They’re high on stewardship and sustainability, a theme of the confab. Unilever’s cutting back on plastics. Aluminium smelter En+ is planting 1 mln trees. Unlike past years, the pledges go beyond PR – and they can be held accountable.

Banks feel the heat of global warming in Davos

22 January 2020

Climate change is the hot topic at this year’s Swiss mountain gathering and financial institutions are in the spotlight. Large investors like BlackRock can force some changes. But regulatory pressure on lenders to manage the risks of a warmer planet may prove more effective.

Aussie fires light tiny flame under climate action

22 January 2020

The damage may cost an estimated 0.5% of GDP, barely registering in the $1.3 trln economy. Politicians may act as social costs mount, but change will come faster if stakeholders also heed warnings that “secondary perils” could be recurring rather than one-off.   

How Jamie Dimon can grab Larry Fink’s green halo

21 January 2020

Now that the BlackRock boss has got serious about climate change, the focus is on his JPMorgan peer. As CEO of the biggest U.S. bank, Dimon’s sway over corporate debt gives him more power than any equity activist. Deploying it would turn his bank from laggard to leader.

Vale dam cleanup hints at miners’ rising ESG bill

21 January 2020

The world’s top iron ore producer faces criminal charges for a deadly 2019 dam collapse. It has spent billions on reparations and safety upgrades, and seen its share price stumble. The total financial hit is yet to become clear, but other resources firms will face reckonings too.

Guest view: Extinction Rebellion, finance’s friend

20 January 2020

The radical UK climate movement may sound like the corporate sector’s last idea of a kindred spirit. But spokesperson Rupert Read argues its focus on fast, deep carbon reductions are simple common sense, for financiers too. That’s why he is in Davos this week.

Larry Fink slowly becomes part of climate solution

14 January 2020

The BlackRock boss says the giant asset manager will dump thermal coal-focused investments, and vote against directors who aren’t doing enough on climate change. With most of its $7 trln assets tracking indexes, the firm can only go so far. But Fink’s tone suggests a step change.

BlackRock starts to tackle uneven climate record

9 January 2020

The world’s largest money manager is joining the planet’s biggest anti-pollution investor group. Larry Fink’s firm hasn’t always been a visible ESG champion – it even voted against the coalition’s proposals in the past. At least BlackRock is now hanging with the right crowd.

Guest view: How to cut the ESG disclosure overload

7 January 2020

The data Fortune 500 companies provide on environmental, social and governance risks can be overwhelming, hard to compare and lacking much financial use. Geoffrey Heal and Shiva Rajgopal of the Columbia Business School lay out a plan to clean up the informational morass.

Sustainable investing will wind up in the dock

31 December 2019

Around $31 trln of assets under management now include some kind of environmental, social or governance factor. But there’s widespread confusion over definitions. That leaves the market open to egregious mis-selling and fraud. A scandal is likely sooner rather than later.