Market operators are integral to realising society's core goals, such as a sustainable environment. Their continued success also depends on it. Yet their activities often have the opposite effect.
Bridging the reality gap involves businesses identifying how they impact those goals and changing to become more aligned.
Are market operators legally permitted to do this? A Legal Framework For Impact shows how they are. However, it also needs a change of hearts and minds across the market ecosystem – we need to look again at the stories in which we find ourselves which shape how we act, such as the observation that societies provide a licence for business.
Read More: Value in culture, in the Starling Compendium 2022.
Finance should have a key role in addressing humanity's pressing sustainability challenges. But how we act depends on the stories in which we find ourselves.
This book is about what Mark Carney has called ‘the social licence for financial markets’ and how engaging with it can move us towards a more sustainable future: change, not imposed by regulators, but emerging from the very substance of market relationships. The reality it reveals contrasts sharply with the usual narratives of markets as places of unrestrained financial self-interest.
Are market operators legally required or permitted to tackle humanity’s key sustainability challenges? Can they go beyond adjusting their position to protect themselves from ESG risks and tackle the root cause of the risks themselves?
This international report prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, PRI and The Generation Foundation looks across 11 legal jurisdictions, including the major finance hubs, and finds that in many respects they can. It also provides a robust framework for understanding how business activity, sustainability goals and legal duties interact, as a basis for deciding what to do.
Explore the growing importance of climate scenario analysis, driven by initiatives like NGFS and ISSB standards, and its implications across financial, legal, and policy domains. Delve into the critical questions for market operators amidst concerns over scenario accuracy, ensuring effective decision-making in an uncertain climate landscape.
Sustainability as a legal duty?
A fundamental reset in investor-corporate relationships is underway. Sustainability threats to economic systems are prompting a paradigm change in our understanding of how directors’ and investors’ legal duties apply. This piece, co-authored by David and published by Bloomberg, looks at how.
Reproduced with permission. Published 16 November 2023. Copyright 2023 Bloomberg Industry Group 800-372-1033. For further use please visit https://www.bloombergindustry.com/copyright-and-usage-guidelines-copyright/
The social licence for financial markets expresses a narrative about the relationship between...
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Financial markets resemble a form of ecosystem, comprised of multiple groups of individuals and...
