The Sustainable Finance Podcast

For advisors, the sometimes overwhelming amount of information on implementing sustainable investing can be daunting. My guest today, Gabe Rissman, is going to tell us about a streamlined method for finding out what clients care about and personalizing how to talk about it. Rissman is Co-Founder and President of YourStake, which received the top ESG / SRI portfolio analysis and reporting tool rati...

William Burckart is the CEO of The Investment Integration Project (TIIP), a consulting firm that develops turnkey solutions to help investors manage systemic risks and opportunities in Sustainable and ESG Investing. Burckart co-authored "21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change" in 2021 with sustainable investing pioneer Steve Lydenberg, and  was a guest spe...

Net Zero emissions by 2050 is the new North Star for major corporations, governments and investors. In order to achieve this goal, corporate players across all sectors of the global economy must be held accountable. My guest today is Pratima Divgi, Head of Capital Markets, CDP North America. She leads engagement with the financial sector to measure and manage the climate and environmental impact o...

Today I’m speaking with Dewi John, Head of UK & Ireland Research at Refinitiv Lipper about how global ESG investment fund flows are shifting away from high growth strategies and into equity income strategies. We also talk about how investors in the UK and EU prioritize ESG and sustainability issues by comparison with US investors. And how the valuation of global companies with high ESG rankings is...

My podcast guest today is Sam Adams, CEO and Founder of Vert Asset Management. Sam is on a mission to help advisors invest sustainably for their clients. Adams and I talk about the book he has co-authored with Larry Swedroe, Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing. Each of the co-authors has brought their unique perspective to the issues and topics they address in this writing partnership. A...

The world’s largest asset owners own approximately $61 trillion in institutional assets worldwide. They are exposed to the whole economy in good times and bad times, and they unequivocally support stakeholder capitalism. Michael Ferrari is Chief Science Officer & Chief Data Scientist at Engine No. 1, an activist shareholder of major corporations like Exxon Mobil. Today we are discussing why Engine...

According to Choir, the finance world has been listening to the same voices for far too long. FinanceChoir has developed the industry’s first diversity certification for financial conferences, with the goal of amplifying the voices of financial professionals who are women, non-binary people, and people of color. Co-founder Liv Gagnon is with us today to talk about how this certification can help y...

My guest today is Wendy Diamond, International Social Entrepreneur and Impact Investor, Best Selling Author of 10 books, TV Personality, and as she calls herself, a Do Gooder supporting the Underdog. She has Three Guinness World Records, and has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and Bloomberg, and has been a keynote speaker at the United Nations, Harvard University and Davos. Today we’re going to...

Americans have $1 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans. Yet many people making payroll deduction contributions to these plans are not aware of the Sustainable and ESG-focused investment options available in these plans. My guest today, Michael Rhim, is working to solve this problem. He’s the Principal at PRM Consulting Group and Lead Author of the IEN’s Guide to Sustainable Ret...

Sonia Kowal, today’s podcast guest, made the following statement in a LinkedIn article in 2021, “ESG research and integration is part of an investment process to try and improve investment returns. It is not necessarily tied to values, ethics, morality, or mission.” But Kowal, who has been President of Zevin Asset Management since 2009, knows that values and ethics were central to the development...

The Securities and Exchange Commission just proposed a draft rule that will require companies to report their GHG emissions, and is welcoming public comments on the draft (by May 20). This is a great opportunity for investors and their financial advisors to share their thoughts and concerns about corporate sustainability with the SEC. Today’s podcast guest is Steven Rothstein, Managing Director of...

In today’s program we’re going to learn why small to midsize companies across all sectors need to nail down their SEC compliance frameworks or risk being left behind as major corporations  with bigger budgets and more staff take the advantage. Nidhi Chadda is the Founder and CEO of Enzo Advisors, a female-founded, minority-owned advisory firm that helps companies build best-in-class ESG business m...

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set targets in 2015 for ending poverty and hunger, improving education, and protecting the environment at a global scale. Since then investors, asset managers and financial advisors have been working to identify the impact of publicly traded companies’ products and services on all 17 SDGs. My podcast guest today is Patrick Uribe, CEO of Util, the fintech...

Novata is a technology platform that’s pioneering a unique approach to ESG measurement, data collection, benchmarking and reporting in the private markets. This public benefit corporation recently closed a $21 million Series A Funding Round supported by the consortium of leading institutions in social justice, financial data and private market advisory that created it. On today’s program I’m speak...

It’s time to progress the ESG conversation with US investors, according to Marina Severinovsky, the Head of Sustainability, North America at Schroders. Severinovsky is on the program today with an important message for our listeners – policy, regulation, corporate action, and investor interest are all aligning to support the expansion of ESG in the US. Listen in to find out Schroders’ take on why...

In my conversation today, Ron Albahary, Laird Norton Wealth Management’s CIO tells the story of how their clients set the stage for the firm’s initiative to spotlight social issues. Laird Norton’s clients include multigenerational family offices, foundations, and nonprofits. Since 2021 Laird Norton has been partnering with Calvert Research and Management and Parametric to create investment solutio...

If you’re in financial services, you need to belong to the right digital communications platforms. But these platforms present a host of challenges, like lack of privacy and fragmentation across multiple tools. Let alone the fact that the business doesn’t own the data. All of these challenges limit your connectivity, efficiency, and control. My podcast guest today is Denise Hayman-Loa, Co-Founder...

In May 2020, the world witnessed the horrific death of George Floyd, shocking Americans into confronting the racial injustice experienced by Black Americans daily. This event forced a re-evaluation of our most fundamental beliefs about racial justice and institutions and became a catalyst for change. As You Sow, the nation’s leading non-profit in shareholder advocacy, created the Racial Justice In...

Here is some disturbing data from the Harvard Business Review. Startups with female only founders receive less than 3% of global VC funding. And female founders and employees own only 11% of total startup equity versus 89% for men. Also disturbing according to the study is that most investors believe that entrepreneurial talent is evenly distributed by  gender! So what’s happening to opportunity f...

In Q1 of 2020, Dynamo Energy Hub Co-Founders responded to the pandemic by pivoting their business model and expanding the digital programming component. How did they do it and did it work? Dynamo Co-Founder and President Kristin Barbato is on the program today to talk about this successful transformation. Barbato and I discuss their growth from 2 to 10 energy innovation networking communities (Dyn...

What should we be expecting in the ESG investment landscape during 2022? To answer that question I have Anuj Shah on the program today. I can’t think of anyone more qualified to discuss the top ESG Trends for 2022. Shah is a Partner at Close Group Consulting, which, since their founding in 2017, has worked on the design and implementation of ESG integration mandates for asset managers and owners w...

Between 2015 and 2020 investor demand doubled the number of sustainable mutual funds and ETFs that are available in the U.S. The trend continued in 2021, with Envestnet reporting higher growth rates for asset flows into sustainability focused products. My guest on the program today is Brett Wayman, Senior Director of Sustainable Investing at Envestnet, and we talk about the dramatic increase of ad...

One of my favorite future-focused sustainable investing conferences starts on March 28. The Wall Street Green Summit has been attracting low-carbon economy entrepreneurs and sustainable finance professionals for 20 years. I’m always surprised and inspired by the roundup of the best and most thought provoking clean energy technologies innovations. And it’s a great opportunity to network with peers...

2,000 large global public companies with $100 trillion of assets under management are committed to meeting net-zero emissions targets agreed to at COP 26. But, a lack of corporate disclosure and ESG data consistency is limiting the amount of assets deployed to sustainable business activities, like managing climate risk for example. Arabesque, a global provider of ESG data, is leading the way in so...

Today’s program is about an unusual bank, so be prepared to expand your understanding of the role banks can play in growing sustainable investing. In fact, Amalgamated has been providing Socially Responsible banking and investment to the public for almost 100 years. It was founded by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union Amalgamated for those traditionally excluded from the banking sy...