I am especially interested in promoting the concept of socially responsible investing (SRI). This includes its accompanying review strategy – environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.
Putin’s little escapade has fundamentally affected many political and economic conversations, including the need to push towards renewable energy. A significant portion of the oil and LNG used in Europe originates in Russia and threats to shut off that supply threatens to have a significant immediate impact on the European economy. By converting to renewable energy, Europe can avoid that trap.
Governance is the third tenet of ESG and generally refers to the internal workings of a corporation and its impact on that company’s overall performance and public reputation.
This is where scandal is most likely to crop up, often suddenly and without warning, mainly because not enough attention is spent examining its roots.
And political and historical examples of the impact of scandals like this are not hard to find. One of the most prominent in Canadian history almost destroyed MacDonald while he was in office. Other events during his second tenure as Prime Minister have served to seriously damage his legacy.
During the summer of 2020, in the midst of COVID quarantines, economic shutdowns, and social and political unrest, one story jumped out to catch my attention. At the end of August Brookfield Asset Management announced that Mark Carney was joining their management team as a vice-chairman responsible for their environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment strategy.
Carney has been an advocate for active financial investment on environmental issues for a long time. This appears to be the perfect opportunity for him to continue that work.
In addition to his role at Brookfield, Carney is also the UN special envoy for climate change and finance.
There are historical examples of the effectiveness of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing, Sometimes, social movements are able to use economic power to affect social policy. There are examples of campaigns to improve society and the economy that convince established interests of the need to change with the times.
Abolition, the movement to abolish the slave trade, is one of those. And Canada played a prominent role in making change possible before anyone else.
