Financial institutions with over $70 trillion in assets have pledged to achieve net zero portfolios and loanbooks by 2050, including meeting ambitious interim 2030 targets.
A report from WWF and Greenpeace found that UK banks and investors are responsible for almost double the UK's net annual carbon emissions. Dr Ben Caldecott, director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme, told Business Green: 'UK institutions providing financial products and services globally can make a massive contribution to solving the problem and there is no time to lose.'
A team of four students from Oxford University including Annabella Wainer, 2nd year PhD student at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment has been named the winner of the 2021 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.
New research from the Sustainable Finance Programme tracks how the financing costs for energy projects, measured through loan spreads, have changed over the past 20 years and finds that financial institutions are viewing renewables as less risky and coal as more so. Oil and gas financing costs have exhibited significantly less change.
As UK citizens, should we all be doing more to make our money matter? Writing in the Telegraph, Ben Caldecott, Director of Oxford's Sustainable Finance Programme, encourages individuals to invest in companies that can prove their environmental credentials. "Getting our capital to speed up the transition to environmental sustainability is a key lever and one of the most important ones we have."
Asset managers are analyzing pictures and data taken from outer space to predict the physical impacts of global warming, writes Bloomberg Green. The article explores pioneering work by Smith School partner Lombard Odier to use geospatial data in risk analysis. It also explores new research from the Spatial Finance Initiative at the Smith School, led by Ben Caldecott.
New research from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, finds that private sector companies' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices positively affect macroeconomic performance including GDP.
Two articles in the Economist's May 23 2020 edition include comment from Ben Caldecott, Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme and Associate Professor at the Smith School. New technology can enable better carbon offsetting - for example the use of high-resolution satellite imagery means that it is possible to know exactly when a tree is cut down.
There is a massive and sustained interest in aligning finance with sustainability. Individual savers, shareholders, politicians and regulators all have a part to play, writes Ben Caldecott for the Telegraph 'Power of Us' campaign.
"If the 1.5C climate target were to be met, over 80 per cent of hydrocarbon assets would be worthless." Ben Caldecott comments in the FT Lex column on the Smith School-led concept of stranded assets.