By Simon O'Connor, CEO, Responsible Investment Association Australasia I was fortunate to spend last week in Paris, with 1700 others at the annual PRI in Person, the largest ever global conference of responsible investors. It was a week full of rich content, which allowed a global...
By Cassandra Williams, Certification and Ratings Manager, Responsible Investment Association Australasia. The Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) is announcing a suite of changes to its Certification Program, which reflect the rapidly maturing responsible investment (RI) market and a global focus on best practice. These changes strengthen...
By Simon O’Connor CEO, Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) Responsible and ethical investing in New Zealand has reached a critical point. New Zealand now has $188 billion allocated across capital markets in accordance with environmental, social, governance and ethical factors. This is the highest proportion of financial markets...
by Michelle Lacey, Head of Wholesale, AXA IM In order to rebuild consumer trust in the financial services industry, we need to reassess what it means to act in the best interests of clients. As the ‘stewards’ of their clients’ investment portfolios, one effective way financial...
By Carly Hammond Impact Investment Forum Program Manager, Responsible Investment Association Australasia. Not quite three years ago, the 193 UN Members adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), hailed by the then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a ‘universal, integrated and...
By Simon O'Connor, CEO, Responsible Investment Association Australasia Ethical investment used to be pretty straight-forward – avoid your traditional sin stocks, and invest in the rest of your universe. Recent developments have shown us just how far we have moved on from those days of safe, simple...
By Simon O’Connor, CEO, RIAA A new report was launched this week in Europe from the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Sustainable Finance, making wide-reaching recommendations on how to set the European financial system on a more sustainable footing, whilst driving more capital into supporting...
By Brian Trelstad, Bridges Fund Management The field of sustainable and impact investing has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. But there are still too many asset owners sitting on the sidelines; interested in impact, but not yet investing. To quote Bono – a...
As part of our role supporting the development of the market for impact investing in Australia and New Zealand through RIAA’s Impact Investment Forum, we attended the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch in September 2017. RIAA’s Impact Investment Forum Program Manager Carly Hammond shares...
$23 trillion dollars - that’s the important number from the recently released Global Sustainable Investment Review 2016, a report RIAA was pleased to be launching with our colleagues from around the world in London last week (report here). All of us in Australia and New Zealand...
Simon O'Connor, chief executive of the Responsible Investment Association Australasia says businesses are being disrupted by the rise of conscientious consumers. The world of investment has been shaken wide awake in the recent weeks reminding financial institutions that they are managing other people's money and people...
Recently we’ve witnessed that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investments have been growing across asset classes on the basis of stronger beliefs that they are not only ethically proof, but financially pragmatic as well. Yet ESG investments are not immune from macroeconomic trends and financial...