Our Latest News

Beyond the US Election

On January 20th 2017, Donald J. Trump will be the new President of the United States of America. After years of intense campaigning and an election result met with both jubilation and disappointment at home, global financial markets quickly went into a frenzy of volatility and uncertainty. This is to be expected while the world determines whether the US President-elect’s policies match his often-divisive campaign rhetoric.

An extraordinary time for global financial markets, Trump’s victory saw investors flee to and return from safe haven assets as they considered the implications of such a historic event. Overnight traders from New York to Hong Kong were caught off guard by a result that defied all odds and polls.…

Read More
A Better Future is Within Our Reach

After one of the most controversial and cutthroat election campaigns in US political history, which saw the prospective ‘leaders of the free world’ debate policy with an unprecedented lack of respect and decorum, today is the day that will reverberate for generations. Or so many of the world’s news and political organizations will have you think.

As voters walk into voting booths, and as the world watches from the edge of their seats, the normal sense of uncertainty nurtured and propagated by the mainstream media has been catalyzed by presidential campaigns that take advantage of our most fundamental fears. The reason is simple – this is an incredibly effective campaigning strategy as it taps into one of our primal defense mechanisms.…

Read More
Don’t Turn Up the Air Conditioning

More than the global debt levels, free trade and immigration, the threat of multi century droughts, rising sea levels and biodiversity’s sixth extinction should be top of the agenda for the world’s leaders. Yet even after four record-breaking debates for the US Presidential election with hundreds of millions of people watching from around the world, there was no mention of an issue that will reverberate for millennia – climate change.

climate-change-001Source: Grist Organization, 2016

Not only will the impact of climate change be seen in our own lifetime, but also for the next 100,000 years. Global warming over the 21st Century will produce a climate not previously experienced by human civilizations.…

Read More
Preserving Biodiversity to Save the World

We are now witnessing the first signs of the planet’s sixth mass extinction, the last of which occurred over 65 million years ago and was caused by an asteroid hitting our planet, resulting in giant tsunamis, powerful earthquakes and acid raid that obliterated 70% of all species over a period of 33,000 years.

This time human interference will be the major catalyst.

According to the latest data released by the World Wildlife Fund and the Institute of Zoology, the global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles are at risk of a 67% decline by 2020 from levels first documented in 1970.…

Read More
The Financial Impact of Aging Populations

In their latest white paper on Secular Stagnation, Federal Reserve economists concluded that real GDP growth and real interest rates are expected to remain low in the coming decades as the global economy acclimatizes to a new normal. One reason can be found in Jeanne Lousie Calment, the oldest woman on record, who reached the age of 122 years old. Having witnessed an unprecedented era of human innovation, from the invention of the radio to over 70 million people accessing the Internet, her life represents a profound shift in demographics affecting our population today. Bear in mind a little over 100 years ago the average lifespan around the world was 30 years old.…

Read More
Understanding the Value of Asset Diversification

“The only investors who shouldn’t diversify are those who are right 100% of the time”

– Sir John Templeton –

The need for asset diversification has never been greater. Subdued financial markets against the backdrop of very high geopolitical tensions around the world is cause for significant concern in the eyes of investors and will drive a return to the diversified portfolio.

Although investors have generally experienced strong asset class returns since the Great Financial Crisis, those returns have been supported by some extraordinary and unprecedented monetary policies around the world in the form of Quantitative Easing. The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have all embarked on QE in an attempt to stimulate growth and inflate asset prices.…

Read More
Innovating Agriculture to Feed the World

Our global food industry has sustained more people with increased efficiency and at a lower cost than any other period in human history. The problem is that agriculture continues to have an astounding and detrimental influence on global health and the environment.

Polluted waterways caused by fertilizer runoff affect the majority of the planet, harmful growth hormones are traced in the meat we eat, malnourishment persists across developing nations, a profound obesity epidemic exists in first world economies and several million pounds of food is unnecessarily wasted every year. Now the leading cause of deforestation, one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and a major contributor to biodiversity’s 6th extinction, global agriculture must evolve to ensure our own survival.…

Read More
Secrets of the Exponential

Evolve or die. Certainly a harsh way to perceive the world around us but make no mistake this maxim is more appropriate today than ever before. With the relentless rise of populations, the rapid degradation of our environment and an unprecedented depletion of our most vital resources, such driving pressures are testing the frontiers of mankind and catalyzing innovation in the very way we live and do business.

A new commercial reality is emerging. In order to succeed, create true value and build the new world order in this new economic age we must achieve exponential progress in four key domains – sustainability, efficiency, integrated information systems as well as circular production and consumption.…

Read More
The Deadly Use of Antibiotics Prevails in Agriculture

“Antibiotic resistance is a fundamental, long term threat to human health, sustainable food production and development. If we fail to address this problem quickly and comprehensively, antimicrobial resistance will make providing high quality universal health coverage more difficult, if not impossible.”

– Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon  (2016) –

On September 21st, the United Nations General Assembly gathered for a special session to determine the ways in which we can curb the use of precious medicinal drugs that are quickly becoming useless in the face of bacteria’s increasing tendency towards resistance. After all 700,000 people are killed every year due to drug-resistant infections, a death toll that, if left unabated, is expected to increase dramatically to 10 million by 2050.…

Read More
Why Brazil is an Environmental Powerhouse

“As the world’s most biodiverse country and displaying one of the world’s cleanest energy matrices, Brazil is an environment powerhouse with an uncompromising commitment to the environment.”

-Brazilian President Michel Temer, UN General Assembly (2016) –

Making his first appearance at the UN General Assembly, newly appointed President of Brazil Michel Temer revealed his stance on several international issues, ranging from the significance of environmental protection for global economic growth and social prosperity as well the condemnation of xenophobic and protectionist policies currently entering modern policy around the world. Liberating trade across several industries combined with a focus on sustainability, social responsibility and environmental protection has boosted confidence for Brazil in the eyes of international investors, who are attracted by the fresh direction of this newly appointed center-right government.…

Read More