Sustainability

It’s officially election season, and (surprise) we’re off to a terrific start. There are plenty of very real short and medium term issues for the candidates to mold their ideologies around. Most notably, like much of the so-called “developed world,” the US has a jobs crisis, both in quantity and quality, that challenges modern capitalism for answers it does not have.

Yet at the same time, there is of course the undeniably accelerating crisis of human civilization, looming ever more visible on the horizon.

Isaac was no Katrina, but this year’s heat records and subsequent drought across the Western United States give new meaning to the phrase “red state,” as this map nicely illuminates:

We post here the response of Allen White, Director, Corporation 20/20 and Senior Fellow, Tellus Institute, to John Fullerton's recent blog post reviewing Generation Investments' white paper, Sustainable Capitalism.

Capital Institute spoke recently with Steve Waygood, Head of Sustainability Research at Aviva Investors, to learn more about the advocacy work the company— with $433 billion in assets under management—has undertaken to advance the cause of more transparent reporting and management of sustainability risk.  We also talked with Waygood about how Aviva Investors has embedded sustainability practices into its own operations, his broad concerns about the flawed methodologies that are currently used to value corporate assets and profitability, and the role both policymakers and the private sector need to play in addressing those flaws.

“We simply can't continue as if business as usual was the cheapest solution. It is not."
—European Union Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard