A new guide shows how equity investors can integrate ESG and make good profits
The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has released a the practical guide to ESG integration for equity investing, which provides benchmark analysis of ESG impacts of businesses based on actual business operations scenarios. Now investors have a way to follow their money and see whether their investments are fuelling sustainable business, or doing the opposite. Now that the impact of ESG issues on investment portfolios is increasingly becoming quantifiable, the PRI is anticipating a greater move towards responsible investment in financial markets and towards more sustainability in the wider economy, making ESG integration a standard practice among investors. (Eco-business)
Gender equality
Women a ‘distinct minority’ among wealthiest in the UK
There are very few women among the richest people in the UK and other OECD countries, according to a report published by the London School of Economics. The report examines tax data from OECD countries where couples made separate tax returns, and found out that out of the wealthiest 53,000 people in the UK in 2013, only 9 percent were women. The researchers said that while examining salary levels was important, the use of tax data gave a more complete picture of someone’s income, such as earnings from dividends, interest and share options. They also looked at Spain, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Italy, Australia and Norway, because like the UK, men and women are taxed separately. Although progress to a more gender-neutral spread of wealth had been made, the report highlights that among the top 10 percent of people, women still accounted for less than a quarter of the top 1 percent earners in all 8 countries. It said a wealth “glass ceiling” appeared to exist, with women a distinct minority of the very wealthy. (BBC)
Environment
China tops WHO list for deadly outdoor air pollution
China is the world’s deadliest country for outdoor air pollution, according to analysis by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It has revealed that of the worst three nations, more than 1 million people died from dirty air in China in 2012, at least 600,000 in India and more than 140,000 in Russia. At 25th out of 184 countries with data, the UK ranks worse than France, with 16,355 deaths versus 10,954, but not as poorly as Germany at 26,160. Australia had 94 deaths and 38,043 died in the US that year from particulate pollution. In the UK more than 90 percent of the population lives in areas with levels of PM2.5s above the WHO’s air-quality limits. Most of the air pollution comes from cars, coal-fired plants and waste burning but not all of it is created by humans. (Guardian)
Single clothes wash may release 700,000 microplastic fibres, study finds
Each cycle of a washing machine could release more than 700,000 microscopic plastic fibres into the environment, according to a study. A team at Plymouth University has analysed what happened when a number of synthetic materials were washed at different temperatures in domestic washing machines, using different combinations of detergents, to quantify the microfibres shed. They found that acrylic was the worst offender, releasing five more times synthetic particles than polyester-cotton blend fabric. There has been little quantitative research on the contribution that fibres from synthetic clothing make to other sources of microplastics pollution. “More work is needed to understand other factors [that] affect emissions,” said Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at Plymouth University. He pointed to wash duration, washing machine filter designs and spin speeds as potential factors in the quantity of microfibres released. (Guardian)
Image source: Shanghai at sunset by Suicup / CC BY-SA 3.0
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