Contemporary alchemy

With an ageing population, rising debt and vulnerabilities in the property market, China risks following Japan’s path from runaway growth to financial crisis and stagnation. Can Xi’s government rebalance the economy and change course?

Will a warmer and less biodiverse world give pathogens new opportunities, and do we have the tools to confront disease? This report discusses the complex intersection of three planetary crises and calls for urgent action to slow resistance to antimicrobial drugs – an obvious public health emergency.

In this month’s instalment of our visual series on topical themes, we look at how political events have shaped markets in 2022 and further back in time.

Governments around the world would do well to heed the lessons of recent chaotic events in Britain that concluded with Liz Truss becoming the country’s shortest-lived prime minister.

Beijing’s ideological battle to stamp out COVID-19 appears increasingly misguided as the rest of the world learns to live with the virus. But the impact of China’s approach will be felt far beyond its borders.

Reflecting on ESG risks in the pharmaceutical industry, Sora Utzinger discusses supply chains and counterfeit medicines, access to painkillers, and the ethics of gene editing.

Our air, weather, food, the health of diverse marine life and millions of jobs all depend on the ocean. But we have not done well as custodians of marine ecosystems. Here, we set out ten ways where human actions threaten the health of an essential environment.

As a key part of our engagement efforts, every January we send a letter to the chairs of companies we invest in (and some we don’t, but still want to use our influence with) to set out our stewardship priorities for the year. Here, in full, is our 2022 letter.