For Consumers Who Care About Sustainability, Do “Green” Labels Actually Mean Anything?
Consumer products companies allocate a good deal of time, attention, and money to incorporate environmental and social responsibility into their business practices. They also make claims about sustainability on their product labels, social media posts, and other marketing materials. Studies show that sustainability credentials matter to many consumers, in terms of overall perceptions about a
Why Analyzing ESG Metrics Is So Complicated
Want to analyze a public company’s financial condition? It takes about a minute to download audited financial statements that go back a number of years and use standard categories—assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, and expenses—with definitions that are reasonably well-understood (unless you get into the nuances of things like revenue recognition or accounting for property, plant
Word Choices about Sustainability and More
This title of a recent article in Reuters caught our eye: “Majority of global asset managers still not investing responsibly, ShareAction says.” The first line of the article goes on to say, “Global asset managers controlling trillions of dollars are failing to invest in a way that will protect climate, biodiversity, and people, despite efforts
Net Zero Alliances in the Financial Sector
Alliances and initiatives can be powerful. Consider NATO, arguably the strongest, most important political alliance in the world. Global health initiatives are successfully combating diseases from AIDS to malaria to tuberculosis around the world. In the fight against climate change, a wide range of alliances and initiatives have been formed. In this article, we focus
Consumers Reduce, Reuse & Recycle; EPR Programs Get Producers Involved
You are no doubt familiar with the choice between carrots and sticks (remember, these are metaphors, except for horses). In other words, when trying to bring about or prevent a particular behavior we can choose between rewards or penalties. Both approaches can work, although usually imperfectly, even when the potential reward or punishment is substantial
Silos are for grain – E, S, and G are not separate issues
When making commitments to reducing their carbon footprints, reducing waste, recycling more, and pursuing other environmentally-friendly initiatives, companies must consider the financial implications for the business. Good news: many analyses show that these efforts, even ones that require a cash outlay, typically save money over time by reducing costs going forward (see our article on
Wealth Management & ESG Disclosure Requirements
Early last year, we posted a short article titled, “ESG and Wealth Management – Taking Off Or Stalled?” We think it’s already time to revisit the topic. First, let’s state a key underlying assumption that is not necessarily embraced across the entire wealth management space: incorporating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the investment
ESG Conflicts? What Would Adam Smith Say?
A respected idea in economics, known as the “universal ownership theory,” states that some actions that could maximize value for an individual company may not be optimal for its shareholders. Huh? Stick with us – we’ll explain, and show why this is relevant in the ESG arena. The whole is different than the sum of
The Healthcare Sector – Taking Care of ESG Issues?
Our moms taught us (yours probably did too) that nothing matters more than our health. Access to health care is something we deeply appreciate (and many of us take for granted). We are grateful for health care professionals and the facilities where they take care of us, the research professionals that develop and produce medicines
Few Things Last Forever—Unfortunately, Plastic Comes Close
There’s nothing like a home-cooked meal. Like so many people, we aim for that. But hectic schedules and/or lack of energy to plan, shop, and cook lead us to grab take-out, order delivery, or pick up a roasted chicken from the market, and fairly often. That means bringing home big plastic containers, along with the
Return on Sustainability Investing
When deciding whether to pursue a project, a company’s CEO and CFO are likely to ask, “what’s the expected return on investment?” (Note: to head off the emails that statement might generate, we acknowledge that the preferred approach is to compute a project’s net present value, but we’ll leave it to corporate finance textbooks to
Employee Well-being and the Bottom Line
Workplace stress is not a new phenomenon. The term “stress” (borrowed from physics) was first applied to humans in the 1920s, and the American Institute of Stress developed its Workplace Stress Scale in 1978. Post-pandemic, there are new aspects to workplace stress for employers to consider. For example, “hybrid workplace anxiety” (we think we just
