The Importance of Brand Messaging for ESG Investors
To make your sustainable investment strategy standout, you need strong brand messaging that reflects your values, and speaks directly to your target audience
Media Interview Tips: How to Communicate with Impact
A guide to delivering your key message; so you look good, and stay in control of the narrative
5 ways ESG investing is changing the world of finance
Whether you’re an impact investor, or you invest for sustainability or ethics—it all starts with ESG investing.
Ethical investing vs Impact Investing vs ESG & Sustainable; what’s the difference?
What is Ethical Investing, and how does it compare to Impact Investing, SRI, Sustainable and ESG Investing?
What is Impact Investing?
Impact investing is changing the way investors value companies. It’s a new way to view financial markets, and it has huge potential to change the world for the better.
Net-Zero by 2050—which super-funds are leading on cutting emissions?
What does Net-Zero by 2050 mean? And which Australian investors and super-funds have shifted their portfolios to being carbon neutral?
My mission, to reboot finance and economics
My mission is to reboot finance and economics. I’m supporting the new breed of investors and businesses, who see sustainability as their key competitive advantage.
Re-Capitalism
We’re at the vanguard of change, but capitalism isn’t going anywhere. This is the evolution of doing business. This is Re-capitalism.
I see two big opportunities in the ‘new normal’
Sustainability will be defined by resilience, and, financial advice will become more transparent and more holistic.
Million vs. Billion vs. Trillion
How much is a Trillion dollars? The step from a million to a billion is HUGE. Which makes imagining a trillion really difficult.
How to solve the Great-Toilet-Paper-Crisis with social enterprise
Who-Gives-a-Crap have combined the subscription model with social enterprise to deliver toilet paper, and it's working!
The best social-impact and business podcasts
A list of the best social impact podcast shows, as well as a few of my favourite general business and investment podcasts thrown in for good measure.
How to be Resilient
We need to be problem solvers. We can’t expect the same old processes to help us solve these new, unprecedented, challenges.
The Perils of Measurement
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, as they say. But now that quantifying everything has become the norm, we need to question the metrics we’re using.
Awards dinner. Photo: Nicole Kaplan
Shifting Power – at the Impact Investment Summit 2019
There was smoke in the air as we arrived on day one of the Impact Investment Summit Asia Pacific 2019. Climate change is no longer an abstract concept, it’s a clear and present danger, so we had to get to work.
The future of work is… purpose! Says Radek Sali
Impact comes in many different forms, but what’s often overlooked is the positive impact that flows from ensuring your staff are working with purpose.
Fort Mason, San Francisco, 2019
SOCAP recap 2019
SOCAP stands for Social Capital Markets, as they say, it’s the intersection of money and meaning. So, on one level it’s an impact-investing conference, but it’s a lot more than that.
What is the impact investor’s special sauce? With Andrew Kuper & Paul Brest
To have impact you need to be ahead of the pack, identifying opportunities that others have ignored. There’s risk involved, but there’s also rewards. And in this space, the rewards go far beyond the financial.
Sustainability is the only legacy that matters
The future is created by the decisions we make today. We have a chance to craft a legacy for our generation that will be told in stories and holograms for centuries to come.
Is your networking having an impact?
The hard thing about networking is that you have to dive-in without expecting anything in return.
Should governments pick winners? with Dr Sarah Pearson & Mariana Mazzucato
Should governments pick winners? These two public service experts certainly think so: Dr Sarah Pearson and Mariana Mazzucato.
IFC and Leapfrog lead development of universal impact investing principles
Reaching agreement on universal principles will be a huge step forward for impact investing, the next six months will be pivotal.
Global vs Australian Impact Investing, by the numbers
Impact investing is no longer a seedling, it’s grown and matured and now there are fresh shoots springing up all over the world. But these communities all thrive in different types of soil and face different conditions.
Can a listed equity fund be an impact investment fund? Ted Franks says yes
Impact investment funds comprised of publicly listed companies will certainly bring scale, but will they offer genuine impact? Ted Franks
Who cares about the SDGs?
Everybody cares about the SDGs, and there’s now a growing list of companies and governments who are declaring their sustainability credentials, and their social and environmental impacts, using the United Nations’ SDGs as a framework.
The thing about Impact Investments
If you choose to buy free-range eggs over the cage option, you’re making an ethical choice about where your food comes from. Impact Investing - it's a blend of philanthropy, finance, sustainability and development aid—and it's growing.
The blockchain could be a game-changer for impact investors
Bitcoin and the blockchain are helping impact investors trace the flow of their funds, as well as measuring and verifying impact on a global scale.
Can Impact Investing revolutionise capitalism?
Impact Investing is evolving at a rapid pace, we're seeing positive changes around governance, impact measurement and the use of finance for good.
What went down @ Impact Investment Summit 2017
Frustrations at a failing economy permeated the summit, but so too did an air of optimism. There were entrepreneurs and business owners and money managers with their hands on some very powerful levers. All agitating to deploy capital to make social change, to further fuel a movement that’s creating its own economic models.
Pension funds & PRI driving the investment case for sustainability goals
For institutional investors the SDGs are a pragmatic guide to risk and opportunity. They don't just help to future-proof capital allocations, they offer a huge boost to achieving the United Nation's sustainability goals.
The UN Global Compact, where business and human rights come together
It was raining on the first day of the UN General Assembly week in New York. First Avenue had been closed to traffic and the main pedestrian crossing had been painted with a bright LGBT rainbow. Wailing sirens filled the air as motorcades of black SUVs roared passed.
national flags of countries all over the world
The new head of the UN – a new era of transparency?
There’s a race going on right now at the UN to decide one of the most influential positions in the world. The bad news is only five people get to vote, but the good news is Donald Trump isn't a candidate.
Does this mean war? Why Turkey shot down a Russian jet.
If you were confused about the multitude of armies fighting in Syria then hold on to your hats because it just got way more complicated. A Russian jet flying a mission over Syria is said to have crossed into Turkish airspace and they wasted no time taking it down.
A journalist in Iraq: Michael Ware’s never ending war
Micheal Ware has been called the most courageous Aussie journalist of his generation. He spent more time in Afghanistan and Iraq than almost any other journalist; he also has the…
The paradox of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea has me so intrigued. I don’t know if it’s the puzzle of the country’s development or whether it’s the eternal lure of the tropics? But no matter…
A Solomon Islands perspective
Studying at a post-graduate level is as much about debate and discussion as it is about research. I’ve had classes in my Masters degree where every student is from a…
I went to Norway and I learned all about peace
It had been my first trip to Norway and while I was struck by the similarities between this Scandinavian country and Australia, I was also dismayed by a stark contrast.…
The changing face of foreign aid
Cuts to the Australian foreign aid budget have been severe, the May budget saw $1 billion sliced from aid funding and over the next three years this will be slashed by a further $3.7 billion. This means that in 2016-17 Australia’s aid spend will be a mere 27c out of every $100 of income.
The fine line between good debt and bad debt
We hear a lot about the scourge of government debt in our current political discourse, but there's a fine line between good debt and bad debt
Agreement in Bali Breathes New Life into WTO
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was jolted back to life, and to relevancy, by achieving its first comprehensive agreement in December last year. The round managed to gain agreement from all member countries in attendance, it was a mammoth task, and while some have said the outcomes didn’t go far enough, it has made strong headway in re-booting the WTO’s stalled negotiations that have seen preferential trade deals flourish.
“For the first time in our history, the WTO has truly delivered,” said WTO chief Roberto Azevedo.
Australia, the world’s greatest… polluters
In this instalment of ‘The Economics of Contentment,’ John Treadgold considers how we should factor our own happiness against those of future generations. Yes, climate change and pollution is on the table, and John tries to bring some much needed clarity to the policy debates we’ve seen hashed out these past few years.
Love Thy Neighbour: Australia’s Links with Indonesia
Economics of Contentment Part 06 – First published on the Sydney Opera House Ideas website.
In the sixth installment of ‘The Economics of Contentment,’ John Treadgold considers the importance of openness and dialogue with our neighbours by looking at Australia’s relationship with Indonesia
Egalitarian Australia and the end of a fair-go
Economics of Contentment Part 05 – First published on the Sydney Opera House Ideas website.
John Treadgold looks at egalitarianism: its place in Australia’s past, and whether it will continue to have a place in our future.
The rise and fall of the Australian Dollar
Economics of Contentment Part 04 – First published on the Sydney Opera House Ideas website.
Did you notice that you were suddenly paying more all that once-cheap international online shopping? In the fourth installment of his column ‘The Economics of Contentment,’ John Treadgold looks at the fate of the Australian dollar and finds some silver lining for all of us amateur importers.
What do we want? FAST TRAINS! When do we want ‘em? NOW!
Economics of Contentment Part 03 – First published on the Sydney Opera House Ideas website.
In Part three of ‘The Economics of Contentment,’ John Treadgold investigates Australia’s lack of High Speed Trains and laments forecasts that we’ll have to wait another 50 years to get fast/efficient transport up the coast.
Can we measure happiness?
Can we measure happiness? Is well-being a better measure of prosperity than GDP? And does economics fail to measure what matters?
Letting the good times roll, with Aussie growth
Economics of Contentment Part 01 – First published on the Sydney Opera House Ideas website.
We’re continually told that we’re the “lucky country,” and yet public sentiment resembles a nation gripped by depression. Is it that our economy isn’t strong, that it is and we just don’t realise, or is it that we want something more? In his weekly, John Treadgold will be looking at the sources of the discontentment that seem to dominate political debate. In his first installment, John paints a glittering economic backdrop against which our dramedy of contentment plays out.
Radical Economics and the pursuit of growth – by Nils Klawitter on Der Spiegel
Radical economist Nils Klawitter asks: Does prosperity depend on economic growth? Is GDP growth a sign of development if it relies on environmental degradation?
The Woes of the Spanish economy – Unemployment, Recession and Austerity
The Euro zone as a whole has faced dogged economic turmoil, but Spain has a unique set of challenges and there is fierce debate about their hopes of recovery.
An Australian Sovereign Wealth Fund
Norway and Chile have them, and the OECD has recommended that Australia develop one - so why isn't there an Australia Sovereign Wealth Fund?
