AIQ: Beyond Climate

In an age of mass extinctions, policymakers, businesses and financial institutions are beginning to acknowledge the risks associated with biodiversity loss, along with the opportunities that arise from nature-positive solutions.

Healthy and happy employees, consumers, and communities are all critical ingredients in a company’s long-term success. Investors have a key responsibility in ensuring the rights of these groups are respected.

We explore how shifting diets can help create a more sustainable world.

Companies operating in the gig economy have been subject to industrial action and legal challenges. Workers say they are being denied basic rights; platforms reply this is the price of flexibility. But there is a viable middle-ground which can be beneficial for all, including investors.

From Russian hackers interfering in foreign elections to high-profile corporate breaches, people are waking up to some harsh realities around data. We look at what the European call for a ‘Magna Carta’ for data has led to, and explore the investment implications of the growing scrutiny over data privacy.

Using the examples of electronics, food, autos and fashion, we explore the benefits of, and challenges to achieving, a more circular economy.

For too long, issues of justice and equality have been left out of the climate conversation. But policymakers, companies and investors are slowly beginning to acknowledge the social dimensions of climate action.

Renewable energy has a vital role to play if the world is to combat climate change. But its widespread adoption comes with a price. As older installations come to the end of their useful life, countries urgently need to work out what to do with the waste.

To align with net-zero emissions targets, the financial system needs a radical transformation. Can it get there and, if it does, what should it look like in 2050?

Internalise the climate externality. That is the major task facing policymakers and corporate executives. However, this requires accurate measurement and incorporation into financial accounts and neither are straightforward.

Energy majors, cement producers, utilities and financial services providers are among the latest targets of legal action designed to make them move faster towards a lower carbon world. Could this be an inflection point, as the conversation turns to specific responsibilities rather than vague commitments to change?

Nearly three decades after it first agreed to tackle climate change, the world has failed miserably to curb the growth in CO₂ emissions. To succeed, it urgently needs to establish an effective price for carbon.

Heavy industry and heavy transport are hard to decarbonise, but this must be done to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Can companies, policymakers and investors join forces to make it happen? The race is on…

Some of the world’s biggest companies are setting ambitious net-zero targets, with significant implications for their supply chains. How impactful could the ripple effect be in helping to meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement?

Technology firms are often favoured by ESG funds because of their ostensibly clean, asset-light business models. But investors need to look deeper and challenge unethical and unsustainable practices across the industry, argue Louise Piffaut and Charles Devereux.

No single technology is enough to tackle the climate crisis, a global and systemic issue that requires joined-up thinking. We flag different pathways to address warming gases in the atmosphere – five nature-based and five technical – and ask what steps are needed next.