Financing a Sustainable Future

Suren Gomtsyan talks to Tom Gosling about their paper " The Emergence of Pass-through Voting and its Implications for Shareholder Stewardship ". Pass-through voting describes a range of approaches to enable investors in pooled investment funds to direct how the asset manager of the fund votes on shareholder resolutions at companies held by the fund. Suren and Tom discuss how the changing...

Martin Oehmke (LSE) talks to Tom Gosling about his paper A Theory of Socially Responsible Investment, co-authored with Marcus Opp of the Stockholm School of Economics. The paper develops a model of socially responsible investment anchored in the corporate finance decision faced by a firm.  With a choice between dirty and (more expensive) clean technology. Martin explains how socially responsible i...

In this episode, Tom Gosling speaks with Stefano Cascino about how large business groups respond to ESG disclosure rules. When parent companies face mandatory ESG reporting, they often improve their own scores—while quietly shifting environmentally or socially harmful activities to subsidiaries, especially those operating in countries with weaker institutions. Tom and Stefano discuss how this “ESG...

Alperen Gözlügöl and Tom Gosling discuss the role that credit substitution plays in sustainable finance. One theory of change in sustainable finance is that directing credit allocation away from dirty firms and towards clean firms can cause the former to shrink and the latter to grow. In this interview, they discuss the ways in which credit substitution can cause this to break down. Putting pressu...

Tom Gosling talks to Dimitri Vayanos about the impact the green investors can have on stock prices by divesting from dirty firms and investing in green firms. There's a debate in the academic literature about whether the impacts are negligible or substantial. Using a theoretical model, Dimitri and his co-authors identify a significant but modest impact on cost of capital, measured in a few tens of...

Tom Gosling interviews Kim Fe Cramer, Assistant Professor of Finance on the compulsory CSR spending mandated for large Indian firms. They discuss how firms choose their CSR priorities and where they spend the money. CSR spending is focussed on a firm’s area of competitive advantage so is efficient, but is focussed in their home region, which often means that richer regions benefit from higher CSR...

Dr Xi Li discusses her research on coordinated shareholder engagement through the UN PRI. She explains why engagements with a clear leader are more likely to succeed, what makes effective leaders, and how collaboration pays off—both in impact and fund flows. Host: Tom Gosling Contributor: Dr Xi Li Read Dr Xi Li's paper, Coordinated Engagements co-authored with Elroy Dimson and Oğuzhan Karakaş To l...

Tom Gosling speaks with Professor Dirk Jenter about what investors really believe about sustainability, how the constraints they face shape decisions, and why most aren’t willing to trade returns for impact. A candid look at the limits of sustainable investing today. Read Professor Dirk Jenter's paper 'Sustainable Investing in Practice: Objectives, Constraints, and Limits to Impact', co-authored w...

Host: Tom Gosling Contributor: Martin Oehmke Tom Gosling interviews Professor Martin Oehmke on how bank capital rules might integrate climate risks. They debate whether rules can be used to incentivize green lending—or whether this would backfire—and why capital requirements can't play the same role as a carbon tax. Read Professor Martin Oehmke's paper Green Capital Requirements To learn more abou...