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S&P DJI Launches Impact-Focused SDG-Alignment Benchmarks
Two new sustainability indices have been launched by S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) enabling investors to benchmark against companies aligned with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The S&P 500 SDG Index and the S&P Global LargeMidCap SDG Index are built on data that reflect the constituent companies’ impact on the environment…
Northern Trust Begins New Year with New ESG Offering
Northern Trust enters 2024 with newly acquired ESG capabilities courtesy of its recent investment in private-market data start-up Novata. The US-based asset servicing and investment management provider bought a minor stake in Novata late last year and has begun bedding in its data management solution into its own offering. Less than two months since the…
GRI CEO Sees Innovation Lab Easing ESG Data Pain Points
If Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) chief executive Eelco van der Enden had any doubts that a Sustainability Innovation Lab (SIL) it recently co-founded in Singapore would attract interest, he only had to wait a few moments into its launch to find out. No sooner had a chat bot been activated for interested parties to inquire…
Change and Consolidation: The Coming Year in ESG
Last year saw some potentially game-changing developments in the ESG data and technology space, especially with regards reporting standards and regulations. It was also the year that ESG became a political football, prompting some investors to review their commitment to sustainability. In many ways, ESG came of age in 2023. The concentration of responsibilities within…
Museum of Nature’s History Offers Investors Clues to its Future
From fossils of the largest beasts to have roamed Earth to microscopic organisms, the ornate halls of London’s Natural History Museum are stuffed with 80 million specimens that chart the past 5 billion years of evolution. The 142-year-old institution is also a repository and manager of data that may hold the key to predicting how…
2023 in Review: Nature Finds a Way
The publication of the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ (TNFD) reporting framework in September cemented biodiversity as a sustainability cause just as important as climate change. In a 152-page document detailing its recommended approach to disclosing the impact on nature of financial institutions’ activities, the TNFD codified a way to channel capital into reviving lost…
Ground-Breaking Standard Setter TCFD Given Warm Send-off
The king is dead; long live the king. At the end of this year the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will cease to exist but its operations will be continued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The standard setter’s dissolution eight years after its creation has prompted a wave of reflection within the…
Basel Committee to Seek More Data Under Climate-Risk Disclosure Proposal
Banks may be expected to disclose detailed data on their exposure to climate risks under new proposals by the banking standards-setter, despite its expressed concern over the suitability of current datasets. The Bank of International Settlements’ Basel Committee has published its outline approach to protecting lenders and investors from the channelling of funds to potentially…
2023 in Review: The Rise of the Machines
Artificial intelligence (AI) seemed to take on a life of its own in 2023. ChatGPT, the large language model-based (LLM) generative AI (GenAI), grabbed headlines with horror stories of hallucinations and doomy sci-fi predictions of lost jobs and machines running wild over humanity. Most ignored the fact that AI in its various forms had been…
UK’s SDR Puts Data and Governance at Heart of Compliance
Asset managers and manufacturers of financial products sold in the UK have been told they must have adequate data, governance and technology in place to comply with the national regulator’s sustainable disclosure recommendations (SDRs), published this week. The requirement from Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) puts data, metrics and ratings at the centre of the highly…