Over the last two months, we closely watched the highly active US energy policy space, at the federal and state level, optimistically seeking a trend pattern of long-term “good stuff” among the regulatory developments that range from forward-thinking pioneering to highly reactive incumbent protection. Once we considered the current additional risk of a 4-4 SCOTUS…
Board Goverance
Overboarding is going out of style
The Wall Street Journal reported on MSCI’s research that overboarding of directors has been declining over the last 10 years. The term “overboarding” intends to describe the phenomenon when directors of publicly listed companies sit on too many boards simultaneously. MSCI concluded that 5% of the directors of S&P 500 companies occupy four or more…
Climate Change Policy and/or Action, Coal
Favorable timing for federal coal policy review
Use of federally owned land has been on the media’s mind lately – how apt for the Obama administration to announce a comprehensive review of the Federal Coal Program. Although, timing of the announcement may have had more to do with President Obama’s State of the Union address than with the events at the Malheur…
Climate Change Policy and/or Action, Ecosystems, Green Bonds
Happy Headlines from the Holiday Hiatus
We were on the lookout for good ESG news that materialized over the holidays but may have been overlooked as we all celebrated our key Western holidays sustainably cheerfully. Our top three: #1 A ban on microbeads in health and beauty products passed the US Congress just before the holiday break. And that’s not all.…
Climate Change Policy and/or Action, Renewables
Positives post Paris
In lieu of a top ten list to close out 2015 or set the agenda for 2016, we focused on the reactions to the Climate Conference in Paris to find some “good stuff”: Our pragmatic rule of thumb on policy quality at any level is to test whether relevant voices on all sides of the…
Supply Chains
The Quest for Seafood with Dignity
As the ESG crowd is largely focused on the aftermath of COP21 in Paris and is dissecting how good the good news are, we want to highlight another glimmer of hope on a widely publicized issue of 2015: the unspeakable treatment of migrant labor on Thai fishing vessels. According to Chris Lewa of the Arakon…
Renewables
Special Advent 2015 for German solar storage incentives
Early November in Germany is the most depressing time of the year. Cold and grey, and daylight, even of the grey variety, is waning. Pretty dim times for those almost ubiquitous solar installations all throughout the nation, which were spurred by a few short years of subsidies to incentivize demand for solar technology made in…
Climate Change Policy and/or Action
Another piece in Indonesia’s Mozaic of Carbon Hope
The headline summary for Indonesia, among the top six carbon emitting countries, constitutes a pattern of annual fire seasons when smallholders and commercial enterprises alike clear land for new palm oil plantations. MongaBay tirelessly reports continuously on all Indonesia’s palm oil news, good, bad and ugly, while the larger news outlets only hone in on…
Climate Change Policy and/or Action, Renewables
Britain spewing hot clean air?
Big news from Britain last week: they plan to close all coal-fired power plants that are not capturing and storing the carbon they produce by 2025. Why is this big news? Britain is the first country putting a date forward – that should increase the likelihood of it actually happening… in theory. But before you…
Executive Pay, Renewables, Social License to Operate
Quotes for optimism
Three quotes last week made us think – optimists’ hats secured with some extra jerry-rigging just to be sure – some fundamental change is afoot. #1: Management of the Sequoia Fund, one of the longest running and most successful fundamental value equities fund in history – it got started with some Buffet influence – sent…