Fiduciary Investors Series Amanda White

 In the midst of the great power rivalry between the US and China, “we need all the help we can get to carve out a future that works well for all of us” says Danny Quah, Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, in a talk examining the future of the global economy and the role of Asia. Listen here. 

Investors are currently facing the end of uncertainty around assumptions they have made for decades, and need to shore up their portfolios with greater inflation protection, more active management, and by fostering innovation, according to chief strategist at the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, Nick Chamie who spoke to Amanda White in the Fiduciary Investors Series podcast.

As carbon emissions continue to rise investors need to innovate on the nature of investment mandates says Colin le Duc, a founding partner of Generation Investment Management. He says real world impact is going in the wrong direction, even though sustainable investing is booming, and the credibility of transition plans is under scrutiny.

Tom Nelson, head of thematic equity at Ninety One, talks to Conexus Financial managing editor Julia Newbould about the extent of the shock to energy markets through the Ukraine War and how it will impact the transition to clean energy and how portfolio managers can invest in renewables and achieve carbon zero targets in this volatile market.

Most rhetoric about mitigation has focused on new energy infrastructure technologies but there is no longer time left to deploy them at sufficient scale. Mitigation will be delivered almost entirely by closing processes that cause emissions by their chemistry and electrifying everything else, and we won’t have as much electricity as we want. This realisation shines a new light both on valuation and on investment risk. Markets cannot currently value climate risk as corporate plans depend mainly on untestable rhetoric.
Julian Allwood, who is Professor of Engineering and the Environment and leads the largest and most inter-disciplinary research group in the University of Cambridge dedicated to climate mitigation, has proposed a new mechanism (ZERPAs) to allow proper valuation, based on pre-purchasing access to the scare resources required to deliver mitigation. This, or some similar instrument, will allow investors to revalue assets in the light of future resource scarcity, and to reallocate capital towards businesses compatible with more achievable pathways to real mitigation.

Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of Cambridge; founder and chair of the Centre for Climate Repair in the university and chair of the climate crisis advisory group as well as senior strategy adviser to the President of Rwanda. He was the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser from 2000-2007 and the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change from 2013-2017. In February this year he was awarded the David and Betty Hamburg AAAS award for Science Diplomacy.