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To Kill or Not to Kill ESG

A recent post by Aswath Damodaran (which title is worth quoting: The Siren Song of Sustainability: The Theocratic Trifecta's Third Leg! no emphasis added)...

Know Your Enemy: Understanding Climate Disinformation

Climate conferences are likes buses; you wait all year for one then three arrive all at once. We are still sifting through the wreckage...

Why Companies Should Not Set Net-Zero Targets

by Matthew Smith, Strategy Lead, Sustainability Integration at Advisense Over the past few years, the number of private companies setting net-zero emissions goals by 2050...

We Need to be Serious about Deforestation and Responsible Timber

The global inability to see the dangers posed by deforestation and our ability to find endless counter-arguments to addressing biodiversity issues needs to end....

Time for a Chemical Portfolio Audit

Remember plucky paralegal Erin Brockovich taking the Pacific Gas and Electric Company to the proverbial cleaners for contaminating the groundwater in Hinkley, California for...

Trust, Disclaimers and Carbon Credits

In last week’s column about the PRI in Person, the Snap touched on the contrast between the American tendency to make hyperbolic statements against...

Circular Thinking at the PRI in Person

As we wrap up this year’s PRI in Person in Toronto, it is difficult to remain as skeptical as this column tends to be....

Bioplastics and California Dreamin’

The plastic-obsessed Laundromat is always on the lookout for some good news on the ongoing crisis involving the ubiquitous but highly damaging material.  This...

Countering Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Having been engaged in several galas and other celebratory events lately, I do enjoy the idea of inviting a provocative keynote speaker or perhaps...

Choose Your Words, CEOs!

Last week,  Stockholm appeals court ruled that former Swedbank CEO Birgitte Bonnesen was guilty of making misleading, financially damaging statements about the bank’s poor...

EVs, Treacle, and FUD

The journey towards sustainability is like wading through treacle.  As Al Gore, António Guterres and Fatih Birol keep loudly reminding us, the world has...

The Governance Dilemma

Governance isn’t typically the topic that makes the man on the street jump up and down with trepidation. Not so for sustainable investment professionals...

Why is Microsoft Buying CRUs?

At the beginning of August, I wrote an article about a reforestation-linked bond issued by the World Bank (WB). The security accomplished the interesting...

Ultra-Processed Portfolios

A corporate match made in heaven – for the parties involved, or hell – for humanity and the planet.  The very first Laundromat honed...

Mystery in Skellefteå

As the temperature cools, we'll soon settle back indoors and cuddle on the couch with a good show on TV. Perhaps a good old...

Quintet of Climate Hypocrites

It is July and things are relatively quiet in NordSIP’s hometown of Stockholm.  However, before long the ESG train will begin rolling again once...

A Beef With Degrowth

Stockholm (NordSIP) - Over the last several years, a range of proposals falling under the heading of “degrowth” have come to gain prominence in...

No Replay for &Repeat

If you are a consumer in the Nordics and especially in Sweden, the brand &Repeat might ring a bell. For me, it certainly did,...

Transition Guardrails Needed

The NordSIP Laundromat has had to get the builders in to construct an extension.  There was no longer enough room to accommodate all the...

A ‘Solid’ Future for Batteries?

I'm often skeptical of new technologies. It is not that I'm a Luddite. Innovation is a crucial part of the way the modern world...

Godfathers of Climate Chaos

Is United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres a NordSIP subscriber?  Has he actually been reading all these Laundromat rants against greenwashing and climate denial?  We...

LSE Sad Second Choice for SHEIN IPO

Fast fashion behemoth SHEIN is on the verge of listing its shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), according to media reports on Monday...

We Need to be Serious About Small Modular Reactors

Not that long ago, NordSIP published a series of articles on nuclear power. At the time, ESG wasn't as politicised and weaponised in US...

Microsoft’s Carbon Overshoot

“Start a post, try writing with AI” is how LinkedIn has recently taken to greeting me, in a clear sign that the robots are...

How Much Stock Should we Put on Carbon Capture?

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is having a moment in the Nordics. At the start of May, Microsoft and Stockholm Exergi announced they had...

Musk’s Paypacket Dawn of Correction

This week the soundtrack to the Laundromat is Shadows by Dawn of Correction – more on that later.  Nordic investors with misgivings towards Tesla...

Arms Against Windmills

Just as I am getting ready to abandon the safe-media-haven of NordSIP, heading back towards the stormy waters of portfolio management, I stumble upon...

Gangster Tactics on Plastics

Bringing the bad guys into the room to help solve a problem can sometimes work.  There are many instances of reformed gangsters successfully working...

Plastic Polluters’ Canadian Conundrum

The Laundromat’s dedication to chasing down all things plastic pollution may be reaching obsession level at this point.  At time of writing the powers...

Shell Doesn’t Shock

You should know that serving on the board of oil giant Shell is not for the fainthearted. Remember the unsettling scenes from the previous...

ExxonMobil Picks a Fight With Church

ExxonMobil has responded to a shareholder resolution on plastics with an astonishing attack on the filer and arguably the entire concept of shareholder democracy. ...

Too Hot for 55

Just as I was quietly celebrating my 55th birthday earlier this week, news broke about a proper celebration happening further south, at the European...

Beware Clowns in Toilets

It is surprising how often the food industry has featured in the two-year life of the Laundromat so far.  It is responsible for mountains...

Sustainable Profit(eering)

The old magic mantra of ‘doing well by doing good’, allegedly coined by American founding father Benjamin Franklin, is still good as gold among...

Time for Climate Action 57+

The latest update to the Carbon Majors database does not paint a pretty picture.  However, it is a thorough piece of research that helps...

Stop Picking on us Say Oil Giants

Excellent news from the fossil fuel industry this week: some of the biggest global oil and gas companies have publicly declared that they will...

The Irresistible Appeal of War Bonds

As the Swedish flag finally joined the colourful flutter of banners in front of NATO’s Headquarters on Monday this week, it offered a perfect...

Fossil Facilitators Face Fury

This week the Laundromat was tempted to publish a blank page signifying its speechlessness in the face of ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods’ assertion that...

Recycling Woes

R.I.P. Re:NewCell! It hurts to see another poster-child sustainable solution company bite the dust. “I regret to inform that we have been forced to take this...

The Fossil Fuel Getaway Drivers

A company has ESG scores of AA with MSCI, A- from CDP, and a nice 11% low-risk rating from Sustainalytics.  It has also committed...

Corporate Swindles Repeated (CSR)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a nice concept.  Companies make their money providing useful goods and services while being fine corporate citizens, taking care...

Burdened by the Law

Have you been following the recent CSDDD cliffhanger? For those of you not yet accustomed to the wonderful lingo of sustainable regulation acronyms, let me...

Enter the Dragon

And just like that, another Lunar New Year is upon us. In the coming days, billions of hopeful people worldwide will be celebrating the...

Swift Solution to the Climate Crisis

“World's first year-long breach of key 1.5C warming limit” reads the BBC News headline this morning.  Perhaps just as troubling are the two hyperlinks...

Criminal (ESG) Minds

Hurray! New Hampshire’s investment managers might, after all, avoid going to jail for acting as responsible investors. On 30 January, the New Hampshire House...

What Evil Lurks in Your ESG-Screened Portfolio?

The Laundromat has disappeared down a plastic-bottled-mineral-water rabbit hole. It started with plastic waste.  As the world focuses on reducing fossil fuel use in the...

EU Calls Time on Eco-Babble

The trials and tribulations of the Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM) over the past 12 months have been well covered in NordSIP, including in this...

Davos Calling

Hundreds of politicians, business leaders, and celebrities are yet again jam-packing snowy Davos for that annual meeting of minds and egos, the World Economic...

New Beginnings

As Nordic investors slowly emerge from several cosy weeks of Christmas languor and overindulgence, a sobering reality awaits. Double-digit sub-zero temperatures aside, the landscape...

Still, Sparkling or Plastic?

Another year, and Laundromat’s war against all things greenwashing continues.  Last year we explored bogus carbon neutrality claims, sportswashing and the impressive efforts of...

Biodiversity Bauble

Hurray! Sustainable communication wizard Jakob Trollbäck and his colleagues at The New Division, the very same team that devised the legendary wheel of the...

Greenwasher of the Year 2023

Let us rewind almost exactly 12 months to the last Laundromat of 2022, in which I expressed a wish for greater accountability in the...

Mysteries and Pipe Dreams

“Sweden’s climate emissions both increased and decreased in 2022,” announced the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), rather cryptically on 14 December. I don’t know...

Post-COP28 Party in the Petrostates

Most of the 100,000 delegates and attendees at COP28 in Dubai were likely there for the right reasons, and will have worked extremely hard...

COP28 by Numbers

“The COP28 venue will be closed on Thursday, 7 December. No official meetings will take place, no services will be available, and no deliveries...

COP28: Beware the Weasel Words

Dubai’s COP28 is a good time to play a game of Weasel Word Bingo.  As the 97,000 delegates and observers thrash out the various...

Would You Like Fossil Fuels With That?

COP28 began today, Thursday 30 November with what seemed like a significant success.  The Loss and Damage fund moved from abstract concept towards reality,...

Dubai Visions

With the sun-kissed allure of Dubai calling out to climate champions this week, deviating from the conventional advent celebrations appears to be a straightforward...

Climate Anxiety

As if the desolation of a Nordic November weren’t enough to spoil the mood of even the perkiest among us, hardly a day passes...

IEA Hammers Big Oil With Hard Facts

NordSIP’s Laundromat listened attentively to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) webcast today, 23 November 2023, during which they perfectly encapsulate the absurd dilemma of...

Dystopian (Non) Fiction

“The whole world is clinging to the handrails on a boat that is lurching through increasingly turbulent seas. Nobody is safe.” Unfortunately, the dramatic...

Behold the 2023 Production Gap!

Good news!  The renewable energy sector is growing at an unprecedented rate!  We are all saved.  Oh, hang on, some more news is just...

Put your Money Where your Mouth is!

Stockholm (NordSIP) – Here we go again.  The familiar whiff of panic, the series of last-minute preparatory meetings, and the persistent disagreements over fundamental...

The Disappointed Professor

Earlier this week, at gatherings for representatives of the Swedish sustainability community, I couldn’t help but notice the nervous anticipation and foreboding in the...

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