A proliferation of climate frameworks is an opportunity for AI to harmonize analysis | Reporting for carbon vs. accounting for it | Is governance taken for granted?

Using AI to assess climate commitments | Ecosystem services | The future of European tourism is being reassessed, in winter and summer | The Keeling curve hits 424 ppm

EV adoption is possible with reliable chargers | Mississippi's holistic approach to improving reading performance | Proxy season is ugly for climate | Biodiversity credits are evolving

A "governance gap" exists between the Fortune 500 and smaller companies, a Yale Law Journal article finds | Retention and promotion - a challenge for DEI, BlackRock finds | Microsoft tries to reduce and emissions and grow at the same time

At CERAWeek, the commitment to the energy transition seemed to be losing, rather than gathering, strength | Oil and gas in Alaska | IRA's bold vision vs regulation and labor constraints | SVB's failure | Proxy season preview

Federal action leads with IRA but cities and states working to do more | Environmental justice stymied by ownership requirements for EV school bus transitions | PE has a retention/promotion problem not a pipeline problem

Opinions vary on the role of private capital in the supply of water. With appropriate guardrails, opportunities for impact, and solid returns, exist.

A stronger focus on sustainability (environmental and social) is linked to stronger financial performance - especially at the level of individual companies. The evidence is less clear that investment products marketed as ESG-aligned outperform broader market benchmarks. At least three things help explain this inconsistency.

What metrics can companies use to measure the experience of women in the workplace more consistently? We take stock of the current state of measurement by evaluating the current parties involved in reporting, and then present a suite of metrics, drawn from Wharton’s Four for Women initiative, that companies can use to collect and report.

This paper is the product of a collaboration between Dream and Impact Delta. Dream is one of Canada’s leading real estate companies, whose purpose is to deliver strong returns while delivering positive impact in the communities where it works. We advised Dream on the launch of its impact investing strategy, which is outlined here.

Growing numbers of investors believe they must understand the full financial, environmental and social impact of their decisions. What tools exist to help them? This paper, published in October 2020 and revised a year later, explores externalities in investment decision-making. While externalities are hard to measure, more progress on this question has been made than many mainstream investors realize.

Asset owners’ decisions affect people over the world, so they want to know if investment managers’ ESG efforts are serious. This post explores eight things asset owners can do to evaluate the sustainability performance their managers. We divide the checklist into two parts: things to do now, and things to form a view on over time.