Stay informed on this week's key sustainability developments with our short and sharp news summary.
24/01/22
This past week was filled with interesting sustainability and climate news, we’ve summarised the top stories below.
Sustainable funds rule UK flows in 2021
Despite last year’s market volatility, UK investors continued to support sustainable funds over their less sustainable counterparts.
Sustainable funds gained £37.1 billion in 2021, compared to the total market net flow of £27.4 billion.
Investors are increasingly aligning their personal values with their portfolios and learning more about how their investments can have positive environmental and social impacts.
Climate crisis cannot be fixed by techno-optimism; behaviour change is needed
Climate experts argue that the government’s optimistic belief that non-existent or unproven technologies will solve the climate crisis is problematic.
Widescale shifts in behaviours, lifestyles, and consumption patterns by the public are going to be required to achieve net-zero.
“We’re going to have to cut down on driving, flying, eating meat and dairy and wasting and consuming less in general. The changes will have to be big.”
Many sustainable behaviours needed for change are not incentivised by the market or our environments, and are unaffordable to many. Barriers to sustainable behaviours need to be removed, or widescale adoption will be impossible.
New regulation and legislation for investors in 2022
Investment managers will need to understand and implement a large range of regulations this year including TCFD, TNFD, SDR, EU Taxonomy, SFDR, ISSB, and Mifid II.
What we have seen so far is just the “tip of the iceberg” as more regulators and regions are likely to implement ESG regulation in the future.
Big banks funding ‘carbon bomb’ despite net-zero pledges
Multiple big banks with net-zero emissions targets are facing scrutiny after supporting the development of the Scarborough-Pluto LNG project in Western Australia.
Across the project’s lifetime, it will produce approximately 3.5 times the UK’s annual emissions.
Between 2016 and 2020, the world’s 60 biggest banks financed £2.8 trillion in fossil fuel organisations and projects, collectively.
