The world depends on global finance making the right choices to deliver positive change and achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
The Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) has become the hub at the centre of the ethical finance movement. We curate independent conversations among a broad coalition of financial services stakeholders, as well as delivering practical projects. We are the partner for action on ethical finance.
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May 2020 sees the launch of our new report, ‘Mapping the Responsible Investing Landscape in Scotland’, which examines the responsible investment market in Scotland, looking at:
- History: the history of responsible investing with a focus on Scotland
- Ecosystem: the composition of the Scottish responsible investment market, and the linkages between different participants
- Taxonomy: the terms used by Scottish fund managers to describe their approaches to responsible investment
- Market Size: The size of the responsible investing market in Scotland, and how it compares to Ireland and the rest of the UK
The motivation behind the report was our mission to raise awareness and support the growth of the responsible investing market in Scotland. Having engaged with a number of stakeholders as well as undertaken internal desk-based research it was apparent that, whilst data on the sector exists for the UK as a whole, there was little or nothing specific to Scotland available.
REPORT
Mobilising Private Sector Capital in Support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
A major report from GEFI and R.J. Fleming & Co. concluded that ‘business-as-usual’ in the financial services sector will not deliver the 2030 target to achieve the Global Goals.
With sustainability and impact quickly moving from being specialist subjects to being core drivers of investment strategies worldwide, the report calls for a ‘step-change’, identifying a private equity fund-of-fund solution that provides the required scale to attract new capital from institutional investors. The new independent managed platform, a global impact fund-of-funds, will fill the gap between specialist impact fund managers and mainstream investors.
Net Zero can broadly be defined as achieving a balance between the Green House Gases (GHG) put into the atmosphere and those which are taken out. The challenge of achieving Net Zero presents a complex range of issues for pension providers and financial institutions alike. With COP26 coming to Glasgow in November 2021, financial institutions are coming under increasing pressure to commit to Net Zero targets. Pension providers must therefore accelerate action towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Following on from our Policy Positioning Paper, we were delighted to launch our Transition Roadmap. The Transition Roadmap is designed to provide practical action that pension providers can take to overcome key challenges around reliable data on emissions, knowledge and expertise of pension fund staff and trustees prioritising climate change. It also helps pension providers to navigate the various tools, initiatives and frameworks that can be used on their Net Zero journey. It guides pension providers on how to start taking action now to deliver Net Zero by 2050 or earlier.
ESG investing and Islamic finance are complementary investment approaches, drawing on a number of mutual principles and product areas. Their modern forms emerged in the 1970’s, though both have roots dating back much further. They share key tenets, such as embracing good stewardship particularly from a social perspective, but also toward the environment. ESG, or responsible investment, and Islamic finance offer products for both Muslim and non-Muslim investors alike and have overlaps in practices and policies.
