Selected news
The following news have been selected due to their relevance for SFG members and sustainable finance professionals active in Geneva and Switzerland.
Are Speculators Adding to World Hunger? | |
The latest big trade to profit from is agriculture. But with international food prices hitting record highs, campaigners are furious and it is adding to a regulatory zeal.”Food isn’t an asset, it’s a basic human need,” says the World Development Movement’s Heidi Chow. “The (futures) market was set up for farmers and food producers to [...] |
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Mobilising impact finance | |
A new investment approach may help mobilise hundreds of billions of dollars to complement public sector and philanthropic efforts and achieve globally sustainable development, writes Tim Radjy. World population is estimated at 6.8 billion people, of which close to two billion live in poverty, 925 million are undernourished, 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation, about one [...] |
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Un enjeu important dans la littérature académique qui se consacre à l’étude du lien entre responsabilité sociale et la performance financière reste d’établir s’il s’agit d’une relation de cause à effet. On ne sait toujours pas si les entreprises sont plus performantes parce q’elles agissent de manière responsable ou si elles agissent de manière plus [...]
Les nouveaux ressorts de la philanthropie française | |
La philanthropie française, quels que soient les procédés employés (collectes publiques, legs, donations) ou les canaux utilisés (associations, fondations, mécénat direct), a longtemps été d’une importance modeste par rapport à celle des pays comparables. Plusieurs raisons expliquaient cette situation. Elles sont tout d’abord d’ordre historique et culturel. La quasi-omniprésence de l’Etat, aussi bien dans le [...] |
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Dans leur papier, Bauer et Hann étudient comment la responsabilité environnementale affecte la sphère des investissements à revenu fixe. Pour un échantillon de panel qui consiste d’environ 500 grandes entreprises américaines, les auteurs essayent d’établir un lien entre le risque de crédit d’une entreprise et sa notation environnementale. Leur analyse montre que des entreprises faisant [...]
Responsible investment in weapons – a ‘contradictio in terminis’? | |
In the Netherlands, the debate around investments in weapons was fuelled by the ground-breaking documentary ‘The Cluster Bomb Feeling’ (freely translated) by ZEMBLA in 2007. It provided insight in Dutch pension funds’ investments in cluster weapons and anti-personnel landmines. Since then, institutional investors in the Netherlands are carefully monitored by Dutch activist organizations like the [...] |
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Brave New World: Investors and Nanotechnology | |
Nanotechnology has silently transformed product design and innovation in a number of sectors. Today it can be found in a wide range of everyday products and packaging, from automobile tires to skin lotion. However, as with many emerging technologies, the potential benefits from nanotechnology are accompanied by emerging risks. Current understanding of the potential risks [...] |
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L’émergence d’une nouvelle philanthropie | |
La philanthropie stratégique détrônera-t-elle la philanthropie traditionnelle? Ou la nouvelle philanthropie occulte-t-elle le poids et l’utilité de l’ancienne? Ces questions, un orfèvre en la matière, Jérôme Kohler, co-fondateur de la chaire philanthropique à l’Essec de Cergy-Pontoise, les pose sans ménagement dans le Rapport moral sur l’argent dans le monde (2010). Il admet d’emblée que le [...] |
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Ethical Investors Successfully Engage Companies and Governments | |
Ethical and socially responsible (SR) investors and funds, through their powerful growing presence, are increasingly succeeding in engaging companies in the process of improving their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and actions. And they are proving adept in getting governments and regulatory authorities on their side as well. However, for most SR/ethical funds, corporate [...] |
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France’s biggest trades union, CFDT, signs UNPRI as asset owner for its €350m finance reserves | |
France’s largest trades union, the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) has taken the novel step of signing up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) as an asset owner, in a move that will see it integrate ESG factors into the management of its €350m financial reserves taken from membership fees. The [...] |
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