Fresh off the press this morning, enjoy this year’s edition of the Sustainable Fixed Income Handbook! Believe it or not, this is our third edition of this yearly issue. From fundamental to passive fixed-income ESG integration, from engagement to exclusions, from Iceland to Australia and a mine-load of green bonds. There is no shortage of insights in this edition. Thanks to the contributions of Länsförsäkringar‘s Kristofer Dreiman, the PRI’s Carmen Nuzzo, Calvert‘s Vishal Khanduja, Franklin Templeton’s David Zahn, MFS‘s Mahesh Jayakumar, UBS‘s Florian Cisana, Andri Guðmundsson and Ásgeir Kröyer of Fossar Markets and Ulf Erlandsson of the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute.
In the news, the most eye-catching development this week was the report that the Global Environment Facility may be rife with fraud and corruption, according to a leaked UN Development Programme’s audit. Meanwhile, the Climate Action Tracker report commended governments for their 2050 carbon-neutral announcements but warned intermediate 2030 CO2 emission cuts were still missing, noting that as it stands its model suggests we are still failing the Paris Agreement.
Elsewhere, the CFA Institute hosted a webinar discussing the paradigm shifts necessary to support the continued growth of sustainable investing, emphasising the need for a transition to systems thinking and universal owner attitudes to investing. Also in the virtual world, we listen into Schroders’ annual media conference where impact was embraced, highlighting BlueOrchard and Schorders’s new ThemEx product. We then caught up with Ken Geren, portfolio manager of UBS O’Connor’s Environmental Focus Strategy (EFF) to discuss the advantages of a long-short investment approach to the energy transition
In the Nordic bond markets, EUROFIMA – the supranational agency in charge of supporting rail transportation in Europe – placed its debut Swedish Krona green bonds to private investors.
