Sustainability

Carney’s BoE legacy is bigger than monetary policy

30 Jan 2020

Outgoing Bank of England boss Mark Carney has ably navigated choppy economic and political waters since 2013. Early attempts to use rhetoric to steer markets went awry, but his big success was shining an early light on the risks that climate change poses to the financial sector.

Shell faces slog to keep least-bad oil major title

30 Jan 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.

Tesla shareholders are zooming away from reality

29 Jan 2020

A second successive quarterly profit has them turbo-boosting shares again. Car sales and prices are up, but costs are about matching them even before investment. The tax rate’s rising, too. Only more rapid growth or widespread autonomous driving justify its value. Neither exists.

UK grocer goals betray scale of climate challenge

28 Jan 2020

Sainsbury’s has pledged zero emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the UK goal. That’s good, but like many banks and oil groups, the cuts only affect CO2 the company itself produces. For businesses to decisively tackle global warming, they need to cut what’s emitted by customers.

Investors and EU can marginalize U.S. on climate

27 Jan 2020

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the White House might deem a European carbon tax on imports protectionist. That exposes one of the problems with regional solutions to global warming. Allying with global investors would help create more powerful sticks and carrots.

Viewsroom: Over beers from Davos

27 Jan 2020

At the end of the World Economic Forum, Breakingviews’ three delegates reflected on the highs and lows of the annual gathering of world leaders, corporate executives and do-gooders. Overall, they conclude that Greta outdid Trump, and sustainability is now a boardroom fixture.

Do-gooder one-upmanship fuels optimism at Davos

23 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 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.

Microsoft puts climate grandstanders in the shade

17 Jan 2020

The $1.3 trln software firm’s plan to remove all carbon it has ever produced raises the bar for rivals seeking to appear green. Funding tech to remove atmospheric CO2 adds a multiplier effect. The only way Microsoft could improve on this would be to ditch its dirtier customers.

Nestlé needs backup in war on plastic

16 Jan 2020

The KitKat maker will invest $2 bln to sell more grub in recycled packaging. Yet even that will only help cut its use of new plastics by a third. For the scheme to work, CEO Mark Schneider needs a market for second-hand wrapping to take off, and other food groups to take a hit.

Climate push matters to BlackRock’s earnings, too

15 Jan 2020

Investors want sustainability built into portfolios so Larry Fink, CEO of the $7.4 trln asset manager, sees an opportunity. That makes efforts to prod the corporate world more sustainable, and adds market-wide pressure to one-off campaigns by firms like Jeff Ubben’s ValueAct.

Larry Fink slowly becomes part of climate solution

14 Jan 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.

Siemens CEO’s climate blog sends semi-woke signal

13 Jan 2020

Joe Kaeser has admitted the 98 bln euro German engineer should not be working on Australia’s Adani coal mine, but cannot pull out. Creating a panel to vet deals for their greenness, and possibly nix them, is partial penance. The CEO’s public disapproval may be a better deterrent.

Aussie fires could be tipping point for carbon tax

13 Jan 2020

Horrendous bushfires are pushing CO2 emissions cuts ever further into the spotlight. The scope for sharp hits to earnings at domestic champions like airline Qantas has stopped Canberra properly pricing carbon before. But inaction is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

BlackRock starts to tackle uneven climate record

9 Jan 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 Jan 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.