In a recent report by Transparency International, Iceland stood out for lagging behind its Nordic neighbours, which all dominate the non-profit’s corruption ranking, due to one fishery having bribed African countries. This week, we also caught up with Söderberg & Partners Sustainable Unit-Linked Insurance report where Länsförsäkringar did better than last year, whereas Handelsbanken and especially Nordea did worse.
Close to home, we talked to Jan Starmans of the Stockholm School of Economics, co-recipient of the Hans Dalborg Award 2022 for excellence in research in financial economics, who explores the timeliness of socially responsible investors’ impact. We also talked to Philip von Platen who is joining Allianz Global Investor‘s Stockholm office as Director of Business Development and we noticed Hadewych Kuiper‘s appointment as Managing Director of Triodos Investment Management.
Nordic family offices are joining the sustainable investment train. Norwegian family office Ferd recently invested in SWEN Capital Partners‘ Blue Ocean Fund while Swedish-based AltoCumulus invested in Jupiter AM‘s bespoke ESG version of its flagship Dynamic Bond strategy.
Other investors are searching for the right match, of which two are waiting for RFPs on the Global Fund Search platform until next week: one investor is looking to allocate €30 million to a core, long-only, large-cap listed global equity strategy, Article 8 or 9, and a foundation will allocate US$10 million in a fund of direct impact investments.
Meanwhile, we perused the Transition Pathways Initiative‘s widely anticipated consolidated report, which encompasses all the pathways and methodologies produced so far, including their most recent 1.5 degrees one. In Sweden, the Expert Council for Climate Adaptation just sent a letter to the Swedish government this week, highlighting urgent need for action. Also in the Nordics, Scandinavian dairy giant Arla is partnering with Better Energy to establish four new solar parks.
Let’s not forget BlackRock‘s Larry Fink who wrote his annual letter to the CEOs, even if didn’t actually contain any surprises or provoke any outrage. He does make a point that stakeholder capitalism is not woke! Last but not least, the derivatives exchange CME Group, announced the CBL Core Global Emissions Offset™ (C-GEO™) futures will be launched on March 7, 2022, pending all relevant regulatory reviews.
