Row 1 - Latest/Ad/Opinion
Row 1 - Latest/Ad/Opinion
ESG: Latest
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With corporates taking a more holistic view of sustainability, banks are under pressure to address concerns over reporting and verification requirements for sustainable working capital, trade finance and liquidity management products.
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Corporate treasurers are playing it safe when balancing the merits of exploiting improved access to capital against the risk of unexpected economic shocks and business interruption.
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The decision by the US SEC to drop mandatory Scope 3 reporting weakens global emissions reporting standards. However, many corporate issuers are already using Scope 3 performance targets on sustainability-linked transactions for non-regulatory reasons. Are the debt and equities markets leading companies onto ESG ground upon which regulators fear to tread?
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Corporates seeking to leverage sustainable investment opportunities continue to be restricted by the lack of reliable data on which to base their assessments.
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The UBS chief investment office’s sustainable and impact investing strategist wants to avoid measurement for the sake of measurement, but responding to client demand for more data while ensuring its readability remains a challenge.
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Traditional custodians are maintaining their dominance in the face of growing fintech activity in the sector.
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Corporate and development banks want their capital to reach the smallest and most impactful of SMEs in frontier markets. Traditional credit ratings and risk assessments can get in the way.
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The London Stock Exchange Group’s head of sustainable finance strategic initiatives wants climate data to redefine the act of indexing.
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Elevated inflation and interest rates have focused treasury attention on the importance of diversification, particularly for those with an environmental, social or governance focus.
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A team of once-public sector bankers and officials is launching a new private equity fund that aims to identify ‘climate winners’ from the transition to a decarbonized economy. It has identified key industries but its central thesis is regulation.
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A securitization of pay-as-you-go electricity bills to fund wider access to electricity in Côte d’Ivoire could spark copycat social bonds for affordable housing, telecoms, electricity access and more.
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The chief executive of Newton Investment Management is a forthright believer in the power of active investors to effect change at the companies they invest in, and thinks tinkering with market rules is unlikely to boost the appeal of London-listed equities.
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The 28th Conference of the Parties starts in Dubai tomorrow. Dubbed the finance COP, conflicting priorities could turn it into a fossil fuel investor roadshow.
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The sovereign pushed hard on its first use-of-proceeds green bond, but a sustainability-linked bond was not seen as a practical option for now.
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The use of AI for ESG reporting and assessments is spreading, and regulators can’t keep up. Lenders need to factor in a new set of governance risks that are hard to identify.
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Big banks are scrutinized on environmental, social and governance matters today as never before and they must often walk a tightrope between competing interests. Citi is no exception.
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Data hoarding, ESG illiteracy and credit risk are roadblocks for regional banks looking to establish sustainable supply-chain financing programmes in the Gulf, just as COP28 approaches.
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The risk of a new war with Israel will derail any fledgling economic recovery for Lebanon as it attempts to convince private-sector investors of its gas and renewable energy potential.
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Sustainability-linked loans have faced growing criticism for their opacity and concerns around greenwashing. Sustainability-linked loan bonds could help to bring more transparency to the market and help legitimise these structures.
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Patricio Sepúlveda, head of Chile’s public debt office, discusses how programmatic issuance demonstrates commitment to sustainability-linked bond goals and can make these structures more cost effective.
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Farmland acquisition for transition agriculture has proved attractive to the climate-focused investment management franchises of large asset managers. Will real-asset investors follow suit?
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Despite a year of high-profile issuance, all is not well in the sustainability-linked bond market. Teething problems could soon become an existential crisis, raising the risk that investors might decide to abandon the asset class altogether.
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Social bonds could help deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals by driving private capital into essential services. But impact looks different from one place to the next, so how can issuers report it in a way that makes sense?
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The increased corporate focus on environmental, social and governance issues is impacting treasury teams that can struggle to justify their initiatives.
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The ISSB has published the final version of IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, the inaugural sustainability disclosure standards. Now the real work begins – getting companies to start using them.
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The green transition is boosting demand for key metals and Africa’s commodity markets are under pressure to increase extraction. But buyer awareness of Scope 3 emissions means that processes need to be cleaned up and fast.
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Jordan Kuwait Bank has issued the country’s first green bond, a key milestone for sustainability driven capital investments in the country. But getting momentum going in the sector will be an uphill battle.
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The French investment bank is taking a bet on a double-edged blockchain technology to stay ahead of both the tokenization and sustainability trends.
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Standard Chartered’s new chief sustainability officer is not shying away from the reality of what the energy transition looks like in emerging markets.
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Turkish airline Pegasus hopes an innovative funding solution tied to sustainability targets will help it increase capacity despite challenging market conditions.
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Twinco Capital facilitates access to sustainable funding by focusing on pre-production finance.
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Risk-sharing mechanisms could help drive confidence in the voluntary carbon market, but insurance products are scarce.
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Pakistan has been trying to improve financial inclusion for the last 20 years with little success. Are new digital licences the answer?
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Solar thermal technology could offer cheap carbon-free heat for manufacturers. But tech developers are stuck in a financing gap between venture capital and project finance that will be harder to fill after recent bank failures.
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SLLs offer more flexibility for borrowers targeting sustainability, but the structure is coming under scrutiny around the world for potential greenwashing concerns.
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Sustainability is now fundamental to all bank operations. Restructuring to make sure that the right people are in the right sustainability roles has been a challenge for some firms. Euromoney looks at what is needed to become a credible ESG leader.
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Big transaction banks are responding to corporate customer demand for sustainability linked supplier-finance programmes by extending the geographical availability and range of the products they offer.
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Just back from Davos, the bank’s new head of sustainable finance says the industry needs to do more, and Barclays needs to do more on transition.
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The recent update to the green taxonomy and implementation of the SFDR RTS have received a mixed reception in parts of the EU.
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Macroeconomic disruptions and regulatory scrutiny will drive market participants to adopt a practical environmental, social and governance strategy in the year ahead – one that is less about narrative and more about materiality.
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Across the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt and its banks boast august credentials when it comes to climate and sustainability. But frameworks and agreements are one thing, creating substantive change across an entire financial sector is quite another.
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COP27 placed green hydrogen production at the top of the global net-zero agenda. Banks want to fund this technology, but energy supply, cost and regulatory uncertainty are jeopardizing its future as the decarbonization solution for hard-to-abate sectors.
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Three years ago, LTS Ventures was tasked with building a simple microfinance platform for Laos’s army of village banks and savings unions. It took off like a rocket, boosting financial inclusion, cutting fraud. Now the firm is eyeing fresh external funding and expansion across southeast Asia.
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Strategies and financing need to be radically reassessed to achieve sustainability in a rapidly changing world.
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Qatari banks are eager to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable banking amid growing public scrutiny of the environmental cost of hosting the World Cup.
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A groundbreaking repo facility for African sovereign Eurobonds was completed in time for a debut trade as COP27 took place. The road to closing the deal was far from simple.
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Euromoney meets Damian Payiatakis, Barclays Private Bank’s head of sustainable and impact investing, to talk about how quiet private wealth has been so far at the UN Climate Change Conference.
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Saving the planet requires shutting down coal plants while also ensuring the livelihood of the people who depend on them. The ADB has a plan.
Row 2 - Long Reads
Row 3 - Podcasts/Awards/Sponsored/Ad
Row 3 - Podcasts/Awards/Sponsored/Ad
Podcasts - 3 columns
Awards
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Nearly all banks talk about corporate responsibility, few make it integral to the way they work. What sets Bank of America apart is that it has been doing just that for years and this year it receives the award for North America’s best bank for corporate responsibility.
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Across every sector and region HSBC stands out for its commitment to developing partnerships and products that will bring finance at scale to create a more sustainable and resilient planet.
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With its unique model of direct lending to microfinance institutions and bringing large investors to the table, BNP Paribas has put financial inclusion at the heart of its agenda.
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Using its balance sheet to help the transition to net zero emissions, racial equality and economic mobility, while supporting employees through Covid-19 and assisting communities in all markets it operates in, Bank of America has put corporate responsibility at its core.
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The breadth and ambition of Santander’s diversity and inclusion programmes set it apart from its peers globally.
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When a big US bank joins its peers around the world under an umbrella of responsible banking, it lifts the entire responsibility agenda – and this is exactly what Citi has done as an early signatory to the Principles of Responsible Banking (PRB) of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.
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Sponsored by Commercial International Bank (CIB)
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