News

Fertilizers: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Until recently, soil was believed to be nothing more than dirt and the accumulation of inert particles. Today, we are discovering that some of our food pressures and global climate challenges may be grounded in the soil. Issues including land use change, carbon sequestration, desertification, eutrophication and crop yields need to address soil health in order to find a complete and sustainable solution.

Recent soil studies have revealed that a single teaspoon of healthy soil contains 50 million to 2 billion microorganisms. These microorganisms are responsible for several ecological services, ranging from water regulation and capture, filtration, buffering of pollutants, cycling of nutrients and carbon sequestration.…

Investment Secrets of Saving the Planet

Investment strategies that place emphasis on sustainability and corporate social responsibility are offering competitive returns in this difficult financial landscape. The incentives of global financial and business operations are shifting, as there are even greater profits to be made from the elimination of environmental, social and long-term economic damage caused by unsustainable commercial excess.

Al Gore, the Former US Vice-President and winner of the Nobel Peace Price in 2007, has made more money over the past decade through his new project Generation Investment than most fund managers who were guided by a pursuit of profit at any price (even if it is socially or environmentally destructive).…

Driving Financial Performance with Sustainability

We are living in a world where corporate responsibility and investing according to environmental, social and governance criteria is becoming the mainstream. This is not only a result of the challenges the world is facing, which require innovative strategies and a radical change in the way we do business. Investing in sustainability has met and often exceeded the performance of traditional investments, while at the same time benefiting our environment, health and society.

The sustainable and impact investing market offers viable, diverse and profitable opportunities for investors to delve into the newly collaborative international movement to globally address the world’s most pressing matters alongside a competitive financial return.…

WHO Declares Zika Global Emergency

The World Health Organization has declared an international public health emergency as a disease linked to the Zika virus is spreading across Latin America that is expected to infect 3-4 million people in the region over the next 12 months.

The Zika virus has been known about for nearly 70 years.  The virus was discovered in 1947, in a rhesus monkey in the Zika forest near the shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda. Over the next five years, Zika was documented in a handful of people across Africa and Asia although it wasn’t of great interest to scientists. The virus appeared to only cause mild flu like symptoms and there were no reports of massive outbreaks.…

Why 2016 is the Year for Green Finance

Over the last few months, the world’s political and corporate leaders have made hard commitments fundamental to human life and prosperity – ending extreme poverty by 2030 and limiting global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels among others.

There is a new global agenda to develop advanced education and health systems worldwide, provide decent livelihoods for a growing population and construct urban and rural infrastructure underpinned by sustainable technologies. In financial terms, the new agenda will require trillions of dollars in global investment.

Now is the time to make 2016 ‘a Year for Green Finance’, with the world’s foremost investors (representing $20 trillion in combined wealth) gathered at the United Nations in New York last week to focus their efforts on clean energy projects, curbing the planet’s rising carbon emissions and ensuring a sustainable resource supply.…

Our Future Depends on Global Investment

The World Economic Forum 2016 has now officially closed its doors after 2,400 business leaders, 40 heads of state and 14 Nobel Laureates gathered to establish the measures necessary to improve the state of the world. Several Global Challenges were identified as the framework for discussion throughout the four-day event, which included mitigating climate change, restoring confidence in our global financial system, securing our global food supply and strengthening global health. This gathering of the world’s political and corporate elite in Switzerland reaffirms the significance of these challenges and reminds us that their solution depends on investment from both the public and private sectors.…

A Precarious Time for the WEF

Global business and political elites have arrived in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum 2016 with one clear objective – to ‘improve the state of the world’.

With investors finding themselves in the midst of a severe bear market driven by a hard landing from China and a plummeting oil price, the timing of this year’s Forum could not have been better. The atmosphere on the ground in Davos over the first few days has been one of anxiety as the world’s corporate and political leaders are faced with incredible uncertainty. Global financial markets are entering bearish territory, humanitarian crises exist across the majority of our planet and there is a very real prospect of a new normal for low economic growth.…

Opportunity in the Softness of the Brazilian Real

With the Chinese economy growing at its slowest pace for a quarter-century, a wholesale correction in commodity prices since 2011 and the Federal Reserve gradually increasing interest rates, currency devaluation is becoming a trend across emerging markets. Brazil, one of the largest and most significant of these, has shown no exception.

Over the course of 2015, the Brazilian Real fell to its lowest level since its introduction two decades ago at R$4.06 per US$. The Real slid after equities in China, Brazil’s top trading partner, fell into a bear market and prompted a selloff in the raw materials and currencies of commodity-exporting nations.…

2016 Will Be a Year of Change for Investors

With the US raising interest rates, slow growth in China and continued monetary easing across the Eurozone and Japan, the world’s major economies are beginning to diverge.

The global investment landscape is also changing. Financial markets are more scrutinized than ever before, whether from individual economic indicators to the frequent murmurings of Central Banks worldwide. While these analyses drive up asset prices, they also increase volatility in the markets. The 24-hour news cycle and instant communication technologies encourages rapid fluctuations in the markets and nurtures a financial culture that focuses on short-term gains. For investors who are more interested in longer-term and sustainable gains, the bigger picture is what will matter most.…