Social Finance

At this year’s World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, PR firm Edelman shared its comprehensive annual Trust Barometer, confirming what we all know: global trust in institutions and leaders is at an all-time low. Fully two-thirds of countries are now considered “distrusters” (under 50% trust in the mainstream institutions of business, government, media and NGOs to do what is right), compared to about half a year ago. This is a stunning collapse in trust, even from last year’s low base.

Capitalism is fundamentally a more efficient system than communism. By empowering private citizens to seek their own self-interest, the system becomes decentralized, making it more locally attuned to market demands and shifting conditions.

Cities and utilities are increasingly relying on data analytics tools to advance their smart systems, even as municipal leaders grapple with how to pay for these upgrades. Fulfilling the smart city promise will require integrating communication technology and increasing stakeholder engagement. This combination will help transform cities and infrastructure, according to Black & Veatch’s just-released 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report.

People in your community and all over the world partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve the place they call home. In fact, Habitat is the largest privately held homebuilder and regularly ranks as one of the top 20 homebuilders in the United States.

Ideally, the free market would have some mechanism by which the interests of future generations are protected. It would have some emergency brake to stop excessive consumption that might leave future generations with less than they deserve.

Latest on the Champions for Social Good Podcast: Jamie Serino speaks with Yasmina Zaidman, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Acumen about how impact investing is working to fighting global poverty.

We spoke to Michael Judin about the nature of fiduciary duties in the 21st century. What became clear is that ESG issues and fiduciary duties are not mutually exclusive.

While the debate over the use of nuclear power continues, the renewable energy sector is quietly forging ahead and independent power producers are adding much-needed capacity to the grid. Since the Department of Energy (DoE) embarked on its alternative energy drive in 2012, capital investments in renewables have totalled almost R200 billion.

South Africa has some of the best natural resources available for solar and wind power. This, together with a reputationally strong and well-run independent power procurement programme, has created opportunities for institutional investors like Futuregrowth − who is now a leading funder of the programme.

Modernization of the U.S. power grid will not only require replacement of old components with new ones, it will also need to account for larger amounts of renewable energy and distributed generation. This movement is causing utilities to consider microgrids as a part of the solution.

Members of the Sustainable Brands® community gather in Boston, MA to kick off the 5th annual New Metrics conference. Nearly 300 global senior executives across diverse sectors are convening today through Nov 16th to unveil cutting-edge corporate practices that measure and quantify environmental and social impacts and tie them to financial and business value.