Category Archives: Environment & Resilience & Sustainability

ESG – Required/Desired Unmentionables

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According to a recent Bloomberg survey:

About two-thirds of respondents in a survey of roughly 300 Bloomberg terminal users said the anti-ESG movement that started in the US last year will force firms to stop using those three letters in conversations with clients. However, they’ll continue to incorporate environmental, social and governance metrics in their business, they also said.

And the market reflects the controversy with corporate dollar denominated ESG bond sales declined from $91 billion in 2021 to $30 billion in 2023.

In addition, ESG isn’t highly ranked in importance:

Some 85% of respondents who identified themselves as being engaged with ESG said financial performance is the most important factor to consider when investing. Only 39% said the same of ESG, which was the lowest reading in the survey.

On the flip side, Bloomberg also reports that Morgan Stanley, the 7th largest underwriter of ESG debt, reports a decent pipeline growing stronger into 2024 and BNP Paribas, the largest underwriter, is predicting a banner year.

So why continue to incorporate ESG when you can mention it and don’t think highly of the concept and why the divergence in between “decent pipeline” and “banner year”?

The answer is a mix of increasing demand for ESG investments with faster growth outside of the US and regulatory requirements. While the GOP is making ESG a four-letter word in the US, the EU is strengthening ESG requirements including verification of ESG validity and compliance. The SEC is also increasing scrutiny of ESG claims.

So, the current situation:

  • Many investors, including major institutions, want ESG investments.
  • EU and other non-US investment regulators are increasingly requiring ESG reporting and in some cases requiring some level of ESG investment.
  • US and other regulators are cracking down on “greenwashing” i.e. falsely claiming ESG compliance.
  • US will fall behind EU and other countries in requiring, originating, and regulating ESG investments.

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ESG Lawsuits

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According to GreenBiz: ” Lawsuits involving ESG-related issues have increased by 25 percent over the past three decades, according to research published earlier this year by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)…..

Broadridge, a fintech company, also highlights regulator crackdowns on greenwashing and an increase in event-driven securities litigation — where lawsuits are filed over significant events that impact a company’s share price — as drivers of ESG-related securities and class action lawsuits…..

One well-documented impact of ESG-related lawsuits is the trend of “greenhushing,” where companies under-communicate their sustainability activities to avoid greenwashing accusations or political attacks. With regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission taking action against corporations for misleading claims about corporate and product sustainability claims, the fallout related to greenwashing has expanded from reputational risk to compliance risk….

And this is before or in the initial stages of the “SEC’s planned climate-related disclosures rule and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive…”

This doesn’t include Republican attacks on ESG or on any socially responsible investment criteria (investment managers are supposed to focus on profits, clients choking to death on discharges from their profitable investments are not investment relevant). Nor the reputational (as opposed to legal) risk of companies and investment managers claiming to be “ESG conscious” while investing in oil, or other non-green or anti-green sectors (just ask BlackRock’s Larry Fink defending ESG and then BlackRock appoints the CEO of Aramco to its board (BlackRock Appoints CEO of Oil Giant Aramco to Its Board – Bloomberg).

The full article can be found at: Get ready for more ESG lawsuits | Greenbiz
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Languages Lost to Climate Change

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One of the lesser-known impacts of Climate Change is the loss of already threatened indigenous languages.”

Since 1950, the number of unique languages spoken throughout our world has steadily declined. Today, the voices of more than 7,000 languages resound across our planet every moment, but about 2,900 or 41% are endangered. At current rates, about 90% of all languages will become extinct in the next 100 years. 

According to The Language Conservancy.

And potentially the most affected by climate change are the languages of Asia and the Pacific Islands with few surviving speakers.

 Disasters, the majority of them weather related, accounted for 23.7m internal displacements in 2021, up from 18.8m in 2018. Over the past 10 years, Asia and the Pacific were the regions most affected by displacement worldwide, with the Pacific island states the worst by population size.

According to The Guardian.

Drawing attention to the issue, the UN declared Year of Indigenous Languages.

The Language Conservancy provides additional information on the danger and attempts to save endangered languages.

ESG – Environment/Social/Governance: What & Why?

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ESG is the application of socially aware and responsible standards centered on the environment, society, and internal governance.

ESG investment refers to an investment strategy which seeks equivalent or higher returns while simultaneously making a positive impact in three areas: environmental, social and governance

According to the U.S. SEC:

  • The environmental factor might focus on a company’s impact on the environment, or the risks and opportunities associated with the impacts of climate change on the company, its business and its industry.
  • The social factor might focus on the company’s relationship with people and society, or whether the company invests in its community.
  • The governance factor might focus on issues such as how the company is run and executive compensation.

Investors, especially institutional investors, have increasingly focused on the ESG aspects of their investments from a mixture of concern, profit, and regulatory pressure. This emphasis has in turn put pressure on investment recipients to conform with ESG standards in a reportable manner.

More specifically:

               Environment – too often viewed solely as energy consumption/emissions addressable by decarbonizing. Environment refers to the entirety of the environment including air/water/sound pollution, energy consumption, ecological features, and aesthetics.

               Social – refers to the human factors such as labor standards, workplace health & safety, local community involvement/benefits/impacts. It can be as simple as providing nutritional advice to tenants to economic development for the local community.

               Governance – referring to the entity’s internal governance practices – is ESG a recognized standard, are there internal rules for ESG measurements and compliance, what is the level of commitment – an analysist or the C-Suite.

_____________________________

Why ESG / Sustainability

The simplest answer is that sustainability is necessary to the survival of civilization and perhaps humanity. Pretentious sounding but the UN estimates that humanity is consuming the equivalent of 1.6 planets. In other words, in the seven months from January 2022 to July 2022 humanity consumed all the biological resources that the Earth regenerates over the entire year. And as a purely financial matter, it’s also good business reducing costs and increasing profits to be explained in future posts.

 

4 Projects That Show Mass Timber is the Future of American Cities

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As architects face up to the need for ethical, sustainable design in the age of climate change awareness, timber architecture is making a comeback in a new, technologically impressive way. Largely overlooked in the age of Modernism, recent years have seen a plethora of advancements related to mass timber across the world. This year alone, Japan announced plans for a supertall wooden skyscraper in Tokyo by 2041, while the European continent has seen plans for the world’s largest timber building in the Netherlands, and the world’s tallest timber tower in Norway.

4 Projects That Show Mass Timber is the Future of American Cities https://www.archdaily.com/905601/4-projects-that-show-mass-timber-is-the-future-of-american-cities

Figure of the week: Africa is home to the 10 fastest growing cities in the world

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The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects that the world’s 10 fastest growing cities, between 2018 and 2035, will all be in Africa. The visualization below first maps the location of the fastest growing cities in the world with a population greater than 2.5 million. Interestingly, many of the fastest growing African cities are specifically located on the Gulf of Guinea including Lagos, Abuja, Abidjan, Doula, and Kumasi.

Figure showing 30 of the world's fastest growing cities

 

 

 

 

Source: Figure of the week: Africa is home to the 10 fastest growing cities in the world

Wildfires can’t cool hot real estate markets | Grist

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More people than ever want to live on the wild edges of Western cities, despite the risk wildfires pose to their homes. A recent study by researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that wildfires drive down real estate prices only in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Home prices in burned areas typically rebound to pre-fire levels within one to two years.

……

Yet developers will continue to build in high-risk areas as long as there’s a demand. Residential growth in forested areas across the United States has exploded in recent years, from an estimated 12.5 million housing units in 2000 to 44 million by 2010. “We should be worried about that,” said University of Nevada, Las Vegas, research economist Shawn McCoy, who led the study. “The societal costs of wildfire will increase, because people continue to develop there. They know that those homes will sell regardless of the risk.”

….

The researchers found that the value of homes within sight of burn scars did dip after a fire and was slower to rebound. But even there, homebuyers’ awareness of fire risk didn’t impact their willingness to invest in those properties. Overall, housing values in the high-risk zones dropped in the year following a wildfire, but rebounded to pre-fire prices in one to two years.

….wildfire suppression accounts for 52 percent of the Forest Service’s budget; by 2021, it’s projected to increase to 67 percent….

Source: Wildfires can’t cool hot real estate markets | Grist

Rising seas could wipe out $1 trillion worth of U.S. homes and businesses | Grist

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Some 2.4 million American homes and businesses worth more than $1 trillion are at risk of “chronic inundation” by the end of the century, according to a report out Monday. That’s about 15 percent of all U.S. coastal real estate, or roughly as much built infrastructure as Houston and Los Angeles combined.

The sweeping new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists is the most comprehensive analysis of the risks posed by sea level rise to the United States coastal economy. Taken in context with the lack of action to match the scale of the problem, it describes a country plowing headlong into a flood-driven financial crisis of enormous scale.

 

Check out interactive map to see how your home, zip code or community does: http://US Coastal Property at Risk from Rising Seas.

Union of Concerned Scientists report at: Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)

Grist: Rising seas could wipe out $1 trillion worth of U.S. homes and businesses

As California’s largest lake dries up, it threatens nearby communities with clouds of toxic dust – The Verge

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Dying lakes release dust, often polluted dust, that is literally killing people who can’t afford to move.

Though we often think of lakes as permanent landmarks, global warming, irrigation, and our constant thirst threaten these resources around the world. Terminal lakes like the Salton Sea, bodies of water that have no natural drain, are particularly vulnerable. Iran’s Lake Urmia — once the largest body of water in the Middle East — has shrunk by almost 90 percent over the last 30 years; Africa’s Lake Chad is also 90 percent smaller than it was in the 1960s; and Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea, once the fourth largest salt lake in the world, has practically been wiped off the map.

When these lakes evaporate, they can upend industries and erase surrounding communities. For residents near the Salton Sea, the most pressing problem is the threat of toxic dust. The receding Salton Sea will reveal at least 75 square miles of playa, the lake bed that the water once hid. When that soil dries, it will begin to emit dust laced with industrial runoff from the surrounding farms: up to 100 tons of dust could blow off the playa daily. If it isn’t captured, that dust will push the area’s asthma crisis from bad to dire. The Salton Sea is a dust bomb that has already begun going off.

Source: As California’s largest lake dries up, it threatens nearby communities with clouds of toxic dust – The Verge

Naiipa Art Complex / Stu/D/O Architects | ArchDaily

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Worthwhile to go to website and check out the photos.

Text description provided by the architects. Naiipa (Literally means ‘Deep in the Forest’) is a mixed use project consisted of an Art Gallery, Sound Recording Studio, Dance Studio, Restaurants, Coffee Shops, and Office Spaces. It is located on Sukhumvit 46, a small street that connects Rama 4 road to Phrakanong BTS Station on Sukhumvit road. The project is named after the concept of concealing the architecture in the forest as the vision of greenery is expanded by using reflective glass all around.

Source: Naiipa Art Complex / Stu/D/O Architects | ArchDaily

Something delicious is growing in the ‘sustainability underground’ | GreenBiz

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This urban hydroponics farm is in refurbished WWII bunkers just 100 feet under the swarming, grubby streets of Clapham, in South London. Next time I hear that 1970 Motown line, “War, what is it good for?” followed by the response, “Absolutely nothing,” some part of my brain will protest: “Hydroponics!” In effect, what Growing Underground does is to flip vertical farming on its head. Instead of going up, it goes down. With U.K. supermarkets recently forced to ration vegetables in the wake of poor harvests…………

The headline: “Paris to turn a third of its green space into urban farms.”

The piece continued, “It all started when the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who was elected in 2014, declared her intention to make Paris a greener city. The Paris government responded to her call in 2016 by launching Les Parisculteurs, which aims to cover the city’s rooftops and walls with 247 acres of vegetation by 2020. A third of the green space, according to its plan, should be dedicated to urban farming.”

The city’s deputy mayor, Pénélope Komitès, noted, “Paris not only intends to produce fruit and vegetables but also (plans to) invent a new urban model. … We have seen a real craze among Parisians to participate in making the city more green. Urban agriculture is a real opportunity for Paris. It contributes to the biodiversity and to the fight against climate change.”

Source: Something delicious is growing in the ‘sustainability underground’ | GreenBiz

Bringing Some New Ideas to an Older Part of Amsterdam – Next City

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By night, Reguliersdwarsstraat is one of the busiest streets in central Amsterdam. A hub for the city’s LGBTQ community, its restaurants, bars and clubs attract large numbers of locals and tourists alike. By day, however, the picture is markedly different. Despite being just steps away from Amsterdam’s famous floating flower market, the area has struggled to attract the daytime crowds. Related Stories Bronx Worker Cooperative Plans to “Compost Capitalism” Baltimore Businesses Team Up to Address

Source: Bringing Some New Ideas to an Older Part of Amsterdam – Next City

Seychelles Finds A Novel Way To Swap Its Debt For Marine Protections : The Two-Way : NPR

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The Seychelles have brokered a novel deal that will allow the island archipelago to swap millions of dollars in sovereign debt for protecting nearly one third of its ocean area.

It’s hailed as the first of its kind. “Seychelles is clearly breaking new grounds and with it, it has positioned itself as a world leader in ocean governance and management,”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/23/588273709/seychelles-finds-a-novel-way-to-swap-its-debt-for-marine-protections

What You Can Learn About the Future of Cities from Wakanda – CityLab

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Citylab has pulled together a Wakanda Reader, or online bibliography of sorts, to indulge those who are interested in the larger questions around urbanism implicated in Black Panther. We would call it a syllabus, but there are already several syllabi available—this #WakandaSyllabusfrom Walter Greason, an economic history professor at Monmouth University and founder of the International Center of Metropolitan Growth, is particularly good. This Wakanda curriculum for middle school grades from school teacher Tess Raker has also been making the rounds.

As for what else has been circulating, here’s an exhaustive, still-living-and-growing list of articles that build upon the Wakandan mystique:

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/the-wakanda-reader/553865/?utm_source=twb

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What Does China’s ‘Ecological Civilization’ Mean for Humanity’s Future? | By Jeremy Lent | Common Dreams

China’s leader affirms an ecological vision aligned with progressive environmental thought. Whether it’s mere rhetoric or has a deeper resonance within Chinese culture may have a profound global effect

Propaganda or hope for the future?

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/02/10/what-does-chinas-ecological-civilization-mean-humanitys-future

Blowing down the Saddledome and building a new Victoria Park – Calgary – CBC News

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Imagine you were given a serious chunk of Calgary’s core, a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and told you could turn it into whatever you wanted.That’s pretty much what the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) is doing with Victoria Park.Planners and a couple of architectural firms are hammering away at a vision for the future of one of Calgary’s oldest neighbourhoods.It’ll be a 20-year plan to turn what’s currently a seriously bizarre jumble of skyscrapers, empty lots, an aging Saddledome, a bus barn and several rail lines, into Calgary’s entertainment district of the future. And a cool new place to live.

Source: Blowing down the Saddledome and building a new Victoria Park – Calgary – CBC News

Opinion | A New Map for America – The New York Times

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From 2016 but even more salient today. Compare to Trump’s Infrastructure Plan once released and see where the plan misses the key points.

Congress was once a world leader in regional planning. The Louisiana Purchase, the Pacific Railroad Act (which financed railway expansion from Iowa to San Francisco with government bonds) and the Interstate System of highways are all examples of the federal government’s thinking about economic development at continental scale. The Tennessee Valley Authority was an agent of post-Depression infrastructure renewal, job creation and industrial modernization cutting across six states….

What would this approach look like in America? It would start by focusing not on state lines but on existing lines of infrastructure, supply chains and telecommunications, routes that stay remarkably true to the borders of the emergent super-regions, and are most robust within the new urban archipelagos…

Where possible, such planning should even jump over international borders. While Detroit’s population has fallen below a million, the Detroit-Windsor region is the largest United States-Canada cross-border area, with nearly six million people (and one of the largest border populations in the world). Both sides are deeply interdependent because of their automobile and steel industries and would benefit from scaling together rather than bickering over who pays for a new bridge between them. Detroit’s destiny seems almost obvious if we are brave enough to build it: a midpoint of the Chicago-Toronto corridor in an emerging North American Union.

To make these things happen requires thinking beyond states. Washington currently provides minimal support for regional economic efforts and strategies; it needs to go much further, even at the risk of upsetting established federal-state political balances. A national infrastructure bank, if it ever gets off the ground, should have as part of its charter an obligation to ignore state lines when weighing

Source: Opinion | A New Map for America – The New York Times