Doing well by doing good? Reassessing the link between sustainability and performance

In the era of president Donald Trump and the ESG backlash, climate diplomats have choppy waters to navigate. Countries are reeling from yet another year of extreme weather as investors look to build resilience into their portfolios. In this episode, deputy editor Jack Graham talks to Rachel Kyte, the UK special representative for climate, about her role under the UK's new prime minister Andy Burnham, how she interacts with investors and what the world must do to respond to climate extremes. Topics include how the government is engaging with Trump's United States on energy issues, China's potential hosting of the UN COP33 summit, and her work on changing the risk perception of emerging markets.

Europe's summer heatwaves have caused widespread destruction, from the Rhine river hitting record lows to wildfires across France, Italy and Spain. It is also having severe impact beneath our feet. Many investors appreciate the importance of soil to our food systems, flood resilience and more. But how do events like extreme heat impact soil health, and how can we adapt? In this episode, our nature reporter Gina Gambetta sits down with Paul Hallett, a professor of soil science at the University of Aberdeen and president of the British Society of Soil Science. Hallett digs into some of the most exciting soil solutions out there, from the power of peas to boost nitrogen levels to acoustic technologies that can rapidly measure soil health. He also explains the implications of the heatwaves and droughts, telling us what's actually happening underground and how investors should be responding – and he looks ahead to next week's UN COP17 conference on desertification, which starts in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Monday.

"Doing well by doing good" was an often-heard refrain at conferences throughout the early 2020s. It was even supported by influential academic studies that claimed sustainability and investment performance were highly correlated. Then came the invasion of Ukraine, giving a boost to dirty and opaque sectors such as energy and defence, and sustainability began to look like a drag on returns. ESG came under fire, with right-wing commentators arguing that it contravened funds' fiduciary duty. Four years on, with new conflicts emerging in the Middle East, the relationship between sustainability and performance is as hotly debated as ever. In this episode, editor Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker discusses the evolution of thinking on the topic with Jason Mitchell, CIO for responsible investment at Man Group. They discuss the performance implications of exclusionary strategies, the use of quantitative methods to generate trading signals from climate and other non-financial data, innovative ways to leverage AI in sustainable investment, and how ESG might be depoliticised.

The European Union's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is one of the most important frameworks in the ESG fund space, and one of the biggest headaches. Since the European Commission seized the chance to turn the regulation into a truly usable system as part of its simplification agenda, investors have been nervously awaiting the finalised changes. In this episode, senior reporters Khalid Azizuddin and Dominic Webb discuss the proposed reforms, some of the key concerns raised by investors from sovereign bonds on fossil fuel exclusions, and how the European Parliament and Council of the EU positions are shaping up. They also set out how trilogue negotiations between Council, Parliament and Commission may play out, and what political pitfalls lie in wait as Parliament develops its final position.

Have investors overstated their ability to drive climate action? Have top-down, targets-driven models of decarbonisation taken the industry down a blind alley? And if so, where should sustainability-minded asset owners and managers refocus their efforts? A new report from the LSE argues for a reappraisal of the topic, based on an acceptance that investor action on climate will be dependent on government policy and technology development. In this episode, editor Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker speaks with Tom Gosling, the report's co-author and professor in practice and director of the Initiative in Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics, about what this recalibration means in practice – and whether the responsible investment community is ready for it. Key topics include the future of corporate net-zero targets, the challenges of supporting the energy transition in emerging markets, and the practicability – or otherwise – of policy engagement on climate by institutional investors.

With attacks on shareholder rights on both sides of the Atlantic and widespread rollbacks, rescissions and retractions of sustainability commitments, the relationship between investors and their portfolio companies is increasingly turbulent. In this episode of The Responsible Investor Podcast, Dominic Webb speaks to Sallie Pilot, managing director of the Investor and Issuer Forum, a UK-focused initiative aiming to improve the interactions between investors and listed companies in the country. The pair discuss how to improve conversations along the investment chain, some of the pain points in the relationship and how to strike a balance between equity market competitiveness and investor rights and information needs.

Transition finance investment products continue to gain popularity among investors, according to recent ESG fund flows reports. Yet it is not always possible to establish whether capital is being funnelled into the critical activities needed to transform carbon-intensive sectors. In this episode, Navindu Katugampola, global head of sustainability at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, explores best practices on transition finance based on his experience overseeing the $1.9 trillion US fund manager's activities in the area. Key topics discussed include what to look for in company transition plans, regulatory and policy developments, and the climate transition's regional characteristics.

Asset managers are under pressure to respond to a wide range of client demands on sustainability issues, from stewardship to decarbonisation, while grappling with a rapidly changing policy landscape. In this episode of The Responsible Investor Podcast, Wendy Cromwell, who heads up sustainable investment at Wellington Management, tells Elza Holmstedt Pell how the US giant navigates this, and how conversations with asset owners are evolving. This wide-ranging interview digs into engagement expectations, US policy changes, addressing physical climate risks, and the intersection between sustainability and key global investment themes.

In recent years, investors have increasingly been trying to work out how to best address deforestation in their portfolios.  How has action evolved over the years? What has been the impact of changes in the regulatory environment, in particular the EU’s deforestation regulation? And to what extent, is it currently possible to set deforestation-free portfolio targets?  Responsible Investor’s nature reporter Gina Gambetta sits down with Graham Stock, senior sovereign strategist, emerging markets at BlueBay Asset Management, to dig into these topics.  Stock is also the co-chair of the Investor Policy Dialogue on Deforestation (IPDD). Launched in 2020, the initiative involves investors engaging with policymakers in Brazil, Indonesia, the UK, US and Europe.  He gives behind-the-scenes insight into how the IPDD came into being, what the experience has been like so far, and how he sees it continuing to evolve going forward.

Investors are urgently seeking to understand how their portfolios will be affected by physical climate risks in the wake of more frequent extreme weather and regulatory changes. Climate risk data, and the related topic of adaptation and resilience, has also been a key focus of Responsible Investor's editorial content this year. We most recently published deep dives on both physical risk data and risk management as part of our COP30 Report. In this episode, Khalid Azizuddin speaks to Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions at the asset management arm of Legal & General, about the challenges of working with data on physical climate risk.