The Responsible Investor Podcast

The AI boom is reshaping the global economy, dominating market discussions and taking over the internet. Not to mention the outside chance it could result in the end of humanity. On this episode, we speak to Parnassus Investments about how investors are thinking about responsible AI, and how they are engaging on the topic. Senior reporter Dominic Webb is joined by Marion Macindoe, Parnassus' manag...

Climate action is facing headwinds in North America but Canada’s big pension funds are staying the course. That’s the message from Bertrand Millot, head of sustainability at La Caisse. The $550 billion manager of Quebec’s public pension funds set its first climate strategy in 2017, and by the end of last year, it had $164 billion allocated to “climate action investments” . In this episode, he expl...

In the era of president Donald Trump and the ESG backlash, climate diplomats have choppy waters to navigate. Countries are reeling from yet another year of extreme weather as investors look to build resilience into their portfolios. In this episode, deputy editor Jack Graham talks to Rachel Kyte, the UK special representative for climate, about her role under the UK's new prime minister Andy Burnh...

Europe's summer heatwaves have caused widespread destruction, from the Rhine river hitting record lows to wildfires across France, Italy and Spain. It is also having severe impact beneath our feet. Many investors appreciate the importance of soil to our food systems, flood resilience and more. But how do events like extreme heat impact soil health, and how can we adapt? In this episode, our nature...

"Doing well by doing good" was an often-heard refrain at conferences throughout the early 2020s. It was even supported by influential academic studies that claimed sustainability and investment performance were highly correlated. Then came the invasion of Ukraine, giving a boost to dirty and opaque sectors such as energy and defence, and sustainability began to look like a drag on returns. ESG cam...

The European Union's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is one of the most important frameworks in the ESG fund space, and one of the biggest headaches. Since the European Commission seized the chance to turn the regulation into a truly usable system as part of its simplification agenda, investors have been nervously awaiting the finalised changes. In this episode, senior reporters K...

Have investors overstated their ability to drive climate action? Have top-down, targets-driven models of decarbonisation taken the industry down a blind alley? And if so, where should sustainability-minded asset owners and managers refocus their efforts? A new report from the LSE argues for a reappraisal of the topic, based on an acceptance that investor action on climate will be dependent on gove...

With attacks on shareholder rights on both sides of the Atlantic and widespread rollbacks, rescissions and retractions of sustainability commitments, the relationship between investors and their portfolio companies is increasingly turbulent. In this episode of The Responsible Investor Podcast , Dominic Webb speaks to Sallie Pilot, managing director of the Investor and Issuer Forum , a UK-focused i...

Transition finance investment products continue to gain popularity among investors, according to recent ESG fund flows reports . Yet it is not always possible to establish whether capital is being funnelled into the critical activities needed to transform carbon-intensive sectors. In this episode, Navindu Katugampola, global head of sustainability at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, explores...

Asset managers are under pressure to respond to a wide range of client demands on sustainability issues, from stewardship to decarbonisation, while grappling with a rapidly changing policy landscape. In this episode of The Responsible Investor Podcast , Wendy Cromwell, who heads up sustainable investment at Wellington Management, tells Elza Holmstedt Pell how the US giant navigates this, and how c...

In recent years, investors have increasingly been trying to work out how to best address deforestation in their portfolios.  How has action evolved over the years? What has been the impact of changes in the regulatory environment, in particular the EU’s deforestation regulation ? And to what extent, is it currently possible to set deforestation-free portfolio targets?  Responsible Investor’s natur...

Investors are urgently seeking to understand how their portfolios will be affected by physical climate risks in the wake of more frequent extreme weather and regulatory changes. Climate risk data, and the related topic of adaptation and resilience, has also been a key focus of Responsible Investor's editorial content this year. We most recently published deep dives on both physical risk data and r...

Just over two years ago, the European Commission launched the first step in the long road to reform of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) . On 20 November, the Commission's proposed amendments to the law were released. These will introduce concrete product categories and do away with both entity-level PAI reporting and the definition of "sustainable investment". In this episod...

With 2050 on the horizon and a challenging political and economic environment for companies looking to hit net zero, engagement on climate change is more important than ever. As part of its new climate and investors focus, Responsible Investor has published a series of articles looking at the future of climate engagement ranging from how climate collaborations are evolving to engagement with hard...

Climate engagement has been on investors’ agendas for more than a decade. So what progress has been made in that time? What have we learned about what works and what doesn’t? And, crucially, what does that mean for how we move forward? To explore these questions, our editor Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker sat down with sustainability and stewardship veteran Colin Melvin of Arkadiko Partners. As co-author o...

Over the course of his three years as comptroller of New York City, Brad Lander has guided the city's pension systems in achieving their climate targets, divesting from fossil fuel companies and seeing significant success with shareholder resolutions on a range of topics. Lander, whose term will end in January, joins The Responsible Investor Podcast to discuss his proudest achievements in office,...

At $96 billion in assets, the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System is one of the largest public pension funds in the US. As of this year, it is also one of the few to have been handed a legal mandate to manage climate risk in its investments. In this episode, Oregon state treasurer Elizabeth Steiner discusses the state's new legislation on climate investment, the challenges and trade-offs of...

After a turbulent first half of the year following the release of the EU's sustainability Omnibus , Brussels is back in session and gearing up for a busy autumn of discussions and decisions on how to simplify a number of sustainable finance regulations. Formal negotiations between EU lawmakers are expected to kick off shortly on proposed changes to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive...

In this episode, we are joined by Amy O'Brien, global head of responsible investing at asset manager Nuveen. She joins us to discuss her new book, A Field Guide to Responsible Investing: Asset Management in the Age of Polycrises. Drawing from her three decades of experience in responsible investment, the book "takes readers on a journey of the evolution of responsible investing, how it works today...

Increasing geopolitical uncertainty and the USA's decreasing reliability as an ally has triggered a massive boost in global defence spending. As investment managers and asset owners look to capitalise on the new opportunities, this has led to a wave of fund launches and changes to exclusions policies across the market. In this episode, senior reporter Dominic Webb talks to deputy editor Elza Holms...

The past six months have been dominated by EU sustainable finance regulatory developments, following the bloc's push to simplify and roll back several of the rules issued under its 2019 Green Deal. On this episode, we are joined by Helena Viñes Fiestas, commissioner at Spanish regulator CNMV and former chair of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance. Having worked in sustainable finance for more t...

The UK's fund labelling regime under the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and the European Securities and Markets Authority's new guidelines on the use of ESG terms in fund names have have sparked a wave of renaming, mergers, closures and portfolio reshuffling. On this episode, we are joined by Hortense Bioy, head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar Sustainalytics. Bioy walks us...

ESG shareholder proposals have come under increasing scrutiny over the past few years, with debates focusing around their alleged prescriptiveness and quality. Support for these proposals also fell sharply from the record levels reached in 2021 before stabilising last year at around 20 percent. Last year also saw ExxonMobil sue Dutch NGO Follow This and Arjuna Capital over a climate resolution. Th...

It is now a matter of broad consensus that the world will overshoot its 1.5C temperature goal, but that does not mean there is nothing to be optimistic about, according to climate finance expert Jakob Thomä. He should know a thing or two about this topic. Thomä led the development of the first climate scenario analysis tool at 2 Degrees Investing Initiative and currently leads a think tank which m...

It’s been just over one month since the European Commission announced its much-anticipated sustainability Omnibus plans, which would heavily water down the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) ,  Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)  and EU Taxonomy. The EU executive wants the changes to be approved and implemented at a very quick pace, and much has already happe...