“How would you suggest that I invest my savings of ten thousand dollars to have a positive social and environmental impact?”

The question came from a PhD student this time, but we get it a lot. Many people want their money to work for them—to preserve their financial security and to improve the world. In fact, almost 85 percent of individual investors say they are interested in sustainable investing and more than three quarters believe they can use their investments to influence the extent of climate change. In response, asset managers have created and rebranded trillions of dollars of funds as ESG (environment, social, and governance) funds targeting socially minded investors. So, it should be easy to recommend many worthy qualifying investments. Right?

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/a_realists_guide_to_investing_for_good

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/further_reflections_on_fashions_circularity_reckoning

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/a_circle_that_isnt_easily_squared

By Andrew A. King & Kenneth P. Pucker Sep. 20, 2021

As concerns mount about social and environmental sustainability, an unlikely planetary hero has emerged: the accountant. A growing collection of investors, academics, and business leaders have proposed that better accounting practices can overthrow what Financier Ronald Cohen calls “the tyranny of profit” and set capitalism on a more sustainable track. This new “Impact Accounting” promises to tabulate every way that individual companies influence planetary welfare—including economic profit, employment, social equity, biodiversity, and climate—and translate all of them into a single measure of impact, represented in dollars and cents. According to Cohen and Harvard Professor George Serafeim, the resulting “impact transparency will reshape capitalism…it will redefine success, so that its measure is not just money, but the positive impact we make during our lives.” Another Harvard Professor, Rebecca Henderson, expresses the plan concisely: “Accountants hold the key to the salvation of civilization.”

Read the full article:  https://ssir.org/articles/entry/heroic_accounting

For the past 30 years, celebrated academics and business leaders have promoted the idea that companies often profit by addressing social and environmental problems. Although these proposals have been hailed as promising breakthroughs, they are unscientific and counterproductive.

By Andrew A. King & Kenneth P. Pucker Winter 2021

Read the full article:
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_dangerous_allure_of_win_win_strategies