No one should end the week bored, as the sustainable investment news flow increased meaningfully. Aside from the binge consumption of COVID19-related content, we notice a significant regain in interest for other news. For those who are interested in the former, we have found an amazing stack of slides by Professor Andrea Galeotti and the London Business School. Once you’ve read that, you can also start focusing on something else.
But before we leave the pandemic topic altogether, two interesting bond issues are worth mentioning: Pfizer came out with a COVID19-SDG bond and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) with a $1 billion Response bond. Elsewhere, Storebrand‘s Matthew Smith suggests a remedy to the critical economic situation: a Green Marshal Plan.
Meanwhile, in London, Environmental Finance distributed its 2020 Bond Awards and we found that Nordic institutions took four of the 47 prizes. Fresh off the virtual press from the Netherlands, we received Phenix Capital’s 2020 Global Impact Platform Fund Report, which outlines the progress of the industry in the last decade and shows which SDGs the space is currently focusing on. Aberdeen Standard Investments reports that ESG engagement in private equity firms is increasing, even if it is still lagging in North America.
In the Nordics again, we caught up with Viggo Johansen who just opened PineBridge‘s new Nordic office. “Too often in our industry, ESG is a little bit of an add-on and doesn’t feed into the investment philosophy across asset classes and strategies,” he told us and explained why he believes PineBridge is different. Also in Stockholm, Lannebo Fonder will now exclude a wide range of controversial industries such as industries arms, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pornography, cannabis, oil, coal and gas, across any of its funds and in Finland, wealth manager Taaleri chose FA Solutions to help them grow impact investing.
Image by Peter Mill from Pixabay
