Garnet Roach
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Harris vs Trump: What should companies expect from the next US administration?
With early voting underway and election day looming in one of the closest presidential races in recent history, we look at what companies can expect from Kamala Harris or a second round of Donald Trump ‘I think we can safely say the situation is as clear as mud,’ says Charley Grant, editorial and media access director at AlphaSense, in a statement that neatly sums up the campaign landscape – even as we close in on November 5. In an election where neither candidate has a significant lead, it is expected that narrow victories in a handful of swing states will…
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Canadian investors say there’s still life in ESG, study finds
Almost all asset owners and managers say polarization of ESG in the US has failed to impact their investment strategy ESG isn’t dead, it’s just gone mainstream. That’s one of the key observations from a new semi-annual survey of Canadian institutional investors, which points to a focus that goes beyond data gathering and on to impact. This is being driven, in part, by an uptick in the number of companies conducting double-materiality assessments and indications from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Canada that the country will have a transition taxonomy by December 31, 2024. That’s according to the…
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‘Investors can still be taken by surprise’: Morningstar’s Lindsey Stewart talks ESG
Stewardship researcher on the questions that have come out of the ‘big think’ on ESG and bridging the gap between values and investment ‘For me, summer reading lists often start with big intentions and end with much less ambitious actions. A bit like New Year’s resolutions – or even investment stewardship on climate,’ writes Lindsey Stewart, director of stewardship research and policy at Morningstar, in his most recent LinkedIn newsletter. In it, he talks about everything from the power of proxy advisers to questioning the number of ESG proposals in the most recent proxy season, as well as offering up…
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‘Blah blah blah, alphabet soup’: Alison Taylor, author and NYU professor on the problems with ESG
NYU Stern Business School professor, summer must-have author and LinkedIn influencer on the problems with ESG and the big questions that still need to be answered Earlier this year, Alison Taylor, clinical professor at NYU Stern Business School, published a book titled Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World – a title that made it onto the Financial Times’ best summer books list for 2024. She talks to Governance Intelligence sister publication IR Magazine at a time when ESG – an area of expertise for Taylor – has become turbulent indeed. Where companies once…
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CSRD as de facto global standard: Inside the minds of SEC influencers
Steve Soter of Workiva on adapting to the world of non-financial information, CSRD as the global standard and the importance of plain English How do you become (what we’re calling in this series of articles) an SEC ‘influencer’? Whatever those influencers’ background or current position, the thread running through this series is a passion for all things reporting. And Steve Soter, a vice president and industry principal at Workiva, certainly fits the bill. Talking about how he came to the world of SEC filings, he explains that he studied accounting and became an auditor before quickly moving into financial reporting…
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Get specific on risk: Inside the minds of SEC influencers
Deep Quarry founder Olga Usvyatsky talks about what transparency really means, how companies can prepare for new rules that bring potentially big change and why risk factors need to be more specific When you’ve spent years focused on the depth of numbers in SEC filings, you come to appreciate what transparency really means, says Olga Usvyatsky, founder of Deep Quarry, a filings site and newsletter on Substack. She’s a former vice president of research at Audit Analytics, who came to the world of 8Ks, 10Ks and everything in between through her work in data analytics. She’s also one of a…
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Inside the minds of SEC influencers: From the Friday night dump to the ‘sexiest’ reporting season
Michelle Leder of footnoted* on her approach to examining filings, the numbers she always reads and why companies should just lay their cards on the table ‘I’m like the queen of Edgar, the Kim Kardashian of SEC filings,’ says Michelle Leder, author and founder of footnoted*. She might be joking but Leder has dug through thousands upon thousands of US company statements over the past two decades. She’s one of a number of people who pore over SEC filings not just because it’s their job but also because they love finding the interesting numbers tucked away in a company statement…
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Climate Action 100+ exits are about climate evolution not a loss of momentum, says ESG expert
New report examines voting patterns of big money managers that have exited or scaled back involvement in prominent climate-activist coalition ‘Investor relations professionals shouldn’t think there’s been a loss of momentum in terms of how managers are approaching climate,’ says one sustainability expert, talking about the significance, in recent months, of some top-name investment managers exiting the Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) pressure group. Instead, he says the move signifies ‘an evolution of the [climate] approach’ as certain money managers hone in on exactly what they’re looking for when it comes to ESG. ‘US managers in particular are becoming a lot…
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ESG in Canada: Report shows investor shift from sustainability to impact
Biodiversity emerging as a key area of interest alongside climate More than two fifths (43 percent) of Canadian institutional investors plan to launch impact products this year, according to research. That was the big surprise to come out of interviews with 32 Canadian institutional investors, representing around C$4.5 tn ($3.3 tn) in assets. Researchers point to an increasingly ‘nuanced’ understanding of themes under the ESG umbrella, with biodiversity emerging as a key area of interest alongside climate. ‘The conversation is expanding from a focus on climate change and broadening to ‘environment’ as a topic area,’ researchers note in the semi-annual…
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ESG scrutiny: Mighty Earth campaign group shares approach to weeding out greenwashing
Global climate group in IPO spotlight with campaign against JBS listing talks ‘perfect storms’ and CEO letter campaigns Blue-chip companies spend big bucks on social programs. Apple, for example, recently increased the budget for its diversity program alone from $100 mn to $200 mn, while Mercedes Group spent €97 mn ($104 mn) on trainingin 2023, up from €93 mn the year before. The areas normally included under the S pillar of ESG are quite broad and people-oriented but can be divided into company internal and external projects. Internal Cyber-security Diversity Ethics Health & safety Human rights Innovation Recruiting Supply chains…