RFI Newsletter Articles

Blake Goud 13/10/2023 Blake Goud 13/10/2023

Investors Undervalue Climate Mitigation Opportunities In Emerging & Developing Markets

A chapter in the IMF’s Financial Stability Report highlights how emerging and developing countries will need to mobilize $2 trillion per year for climate mitigation – 90% of it from the private sector when China is excluded. Many countries face an uphill task because credit ratings that are lower investment grade, sub-investment grade or not rated turn off many institutional investors, and multilateral development banks don’t attract as much private finance as they could. In some cases, these countries would increase their long-term creditworthiness by investing in climate mitigation rather than if they are unable to at the scale required.

Blake Goud 06/10/2023 Blake Goud 06/10/2023

AI will be an important tool for assessing transition plans against the growing range of frameworks

The most acute issue across ESG in recent years has been the relationship between relative outperformers and underperformers and the absolute outcomes that define issues such as success in addressing climate change. Many of the issues in greenwashing come down to promoting as ‘sustainable’ activities that improve on the norm, even if they fall short of what is required to bring about climate change mitigation, nature protection, or sustainable development.

Blake Goud 27/09/2023 Blake Goud 27/09/2023

RFI releases financed emissions report and open-access database

The RFI Foundation has released a report and database with estimates of financed emissions across 11 OIC markets in a continuation of our focus on improving financial institutions’ ability to address climate change. The urgent need for this type of resource is reinforced by the conclusions of the Global Stocktake that the world has until 2025 to reach peak global emissions.

Blake Goud 14/09/2023 Blake Goud 14/09/2023

The Global Stocktake offers a wake-up call for financial institutions working towards long-term climate targets

A Global Stocktake to update on the world’s progress towards goals set down in the Paris Agreement shows notable ambition, although not enough ambition or follow-through to keep on a 1.5° C trajectory. One of the upcoming milestones required to stay on track is for the world to reach peak global emissions by 2025. The nearness of this deadline highlights an important reality in addressing climate change – the world is working on mitigating an issue that will bring catastrophic consequences if unmitigated, and we will only know whether we’re back on target long after the actions we are discussing today may be completed.

Blake Goud 08/09/2023 Blake Goud 08/09/2023

The investors underpinning the greenium

New research has identified one of the sources of the ‘greenium’ seen in green bond issuance among institutional investors, especially pension funds and mutual funds. The study used a database of European bond holdings and compared the sensitivity of different types of investors to changes in market conditions. Among the investors studied – the database used included only European investors – mutual fund and pension fund investors were less likely to sell green bonds in response to changes in price than were banks and insurance companies.

Blake Goud 30/08/2023 Blake Goud 30/08/2023

Resetting expectations for ESG

Following the onset of Covid-19, ESG became a hot topic as the ‘next big thing’. With that growth, it attracted both pretenders and detractors. The change in the tone of reporting about ESG has led to some hand-wringing about its future. A UK-based portfolio manager broke down the issue into two parts: “When it comes to “the three-letter acronym ‘ESG’ — people don’t want to talk about it as much because of the news flow from the US. But from an investment perspective and what we do internally, it has never been more important.”