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The Snap

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)...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Rising Sun, Hidden Stories

The elated mood from my recent expedition to PRI-land-Japan is fading as rapidly as the milder effects of a westward jet lag1. I reckon...

Tokyo Brief

And it’s a wrap. The annual gathering of the global sustainable investing elite, PRI in Person, is over for this time, and the delegates...

Fossil Madness

According to the UN’s passionate and outspoken Secretary-General, António Guterres, “investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” Well, madmen (and...

To Accept or Not to Accept

Last Friday, I spent some time away from my desk to join the Nordic ‘digilogue’ event A Sustainable Tomorrow in a hub generously hosted...

Don’t Mention the Nuclear Power

It looks like Germany is having a tough time… again. It’s not the first time the Economist asks whether Germany is ‘the sick man...

Rays of (Green) Light

‘Gloom-and-doom’ is your typical leitmotif in the land of sustainability. News of brutal heat, devastating floods or droughts, and raging forest fires remind us...

Ratings Retreat

Ratings and scores have always been controversial. The neat data packages that fit easily in an Excel sheet have become, perhaps, too indispensable, supporting...

Disengaging

The world’s largest investor-led engagement initiative, Climate Action 100+, seems to be at a crossroads. Aware of the need to reassert its raison d’être,...

Another Deep-Sea Drama

While many of us were glued to our screens following the tragic faith of the Titan sub crew in the aftermath of its disappearance...

The Devil You Know

And just like that, Twitter is once again flooded by anti-ESG-sm. It was Elon Musk himself who sparked the new wave of criticism earlier...

COP-Opera, Chapter 28

Tune in to the latest episode of your favourite soap opera, aka COP28! “This is an absolute scandal,” says French MEP Manon Aubry, one of...

NZIA and Other Endangered Species

Joining a global sustainable initiative, preferably adorned by a fancy yet difficult-to-pronounce acronym and the blessing of the United Nations, used to be a...

Rallying the Troops

It is getting hot out there! And I don’t mean just the unseasonably high temperatures courtesy of global warming aided by El Niño. The...

Eurovision(s)

Are you still euphoric after Loreen’s fantastic feat of securing another win for Sweden or sympathising with the immensely popular Finnish contribution the juries...

Phase Out or Mop Up

Years ago, as I was entering the world of macrofinance, I remember being quite fascinated by the way my more experienced colleagues would dissect...

Crime Without Punishment

Have you noticed how activists with environmental agendas have been suiting up lately, eager to move the action from streets to courts? A sign...

AI Thirst

I recall the days when I wished my Google connections were powerful enough to grant me an audience with LaMDA. At the time, the...

How to Prioritise

Who should live and who should die sounds like a decision reserved for God(s), not an actual dilemma that any of us mere mortals...

Legal Action

The budding season might be hard to detect in a depressingly grey and icy Nordic landscape, but for the youthful activists of the Swedish...

ESG as a Distraction

Like that elusive white rabbit, the spectacular collapse of a certain Californian bank has been beckoning many of us down a vertiginously deep hole...

Defensible?

Has it been a year already? “The longest day of our lives,” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls it. “We woke up early and...

A Welcome Resignation

Funny word, resignation. One of its meanings is “the acceptance of something undesirable but inevitable”. It certainly took time for the infamous president of...

When Greed Is Good

Despite the persistent rumours about the imminent death of ESG, the handy little acronym is proving to be as resilient as ever. Lately, the...

Offsetting Consequences

By any standard, the beginning of this year has been tough on carbon offsetters. First came the damning article in the Guardian, revealing the results...

Europe’s Sulking

Rumour has it that cowboys from the Wild West are roaming the European green fields these days, stealthily poaching our most eligible native clean...

Lützerath to Davos

As the world leaders gather in Davos this week, I wish they would offer some real solutions to the climate crisis threatening the very...

Sharpen Your Spikes

Let me tell you about my new year’s resolution: I will aspire to make the Snap spikier in 2023. Now, those of you of...

Checks and Balances

It must have been all those champagne bubbles imbibed on the last day of 2021 that sparked my cheerful new year’s resolution to stay...

Christmas Woes

This Christmas season, I’ve noticed that it takes some extra (potent) mulled wine to suppress the panic in the eyes of many professional sustainable...

A Star Is Born

Fusion seems to be on everybody’s mind these days. And I don’t mean the medley of Oriental and Occidental flavours and cooking techniques that...

30×30

Catchy numerical slogans seem rather irresistible to the community of Sustainaville. Whether simply a convenient mnemonic device or a subconscious attempt to (over)compensate for...

Walking the Talk of Diversity

Barcelona (NordSIP) - As investor conferences go, there is something highly unusual about the annual PRI in Person gathering. I’m not talking about the...

ESG by Retrofitting

Another week, another greenwashing scandal. This time around, it’s Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s (GSAM) turn to eat humble pie instead of the more traditional...

On Summiting

This season, the leaders of the world have some really tough choices to make. Should they scuba-dive straight into the balmy waters of climate...

Democracy by Proxy

As all eyes are glued on a sunny Egyptian resort, you might have missed this somewhat less spectacular revolution-in-the-making rocking the formerly secretive club...

Spooked by Nukes

It has been a truly nightmarish Halloween week. Forget the usual paraphernalia of ghosts, vampires, and jack-o’-lanterns. This year, several news stories competed to...

Greenwishing Woes

An offhand remark by a portfolio manager the other day gets me thinking. Am I perhaps being way too gullible and lenient when it...

Tough(ish) Talk

It might seem like the United Nations Global Compact has been around forever. In fact, the venerable pact, launched by former UN Secretary-General Kofi...

Importing Sun

Up here in the sun-worshipping North, we have always known to appreciate the gifts of the mighty celestial body. Even more so this time...

Carpe This Colourful Diem!

Are you as excited as I am about the prospect of foliage peeping this weekend? Years spent in the subtropics have made me truly...

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