Climate-related financial disclosures: Task Force seeks to nudge-rock the system

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a world where everything is not presented in simplistic polar oppositions? For example assuming that not prioritising shareholders implies prioritising the whole world, that all shareholders are the same and opposed to the sustainability world, that assessing financial impacts implies excluding sustainability impacts, and that the enterprise […]

Materiality: Talking heads, talking numbers and talking finance…

Materiality had some sober moments at the GRI Global Conference in Amsterdam this May. It was evident that established reporters are asking more pertinent questions about the value of the materiality determination process. Some are starting to do it less frequently (for example every three years, not annually). This raises three important questions: The frequency […]

Integrated Reporting: I think integrated, therefore I am…

“Integration” again found itself in the domain of popular terminology in recent years as managers, policy makers and others contemplated ways of dealing with mainstreaming, fragmented information and inconsistencies as demonstrated in the market failures of financial crisis. Integration is a beautiful word, bringing to mind images of integral whole, unified pattern and harmony. Who […]

Sign of the times: ESG Products & Services

Recent banking scandals have raised interest in corporate governance and organisational culture as make-or-break features of what makes a responsible financial institution. These can also be found in a longer list of sustainability expectations of financial institutions that have crystallised over the last two decades. In my work with Incite we have identified the ten […]

Basel III and ESG: What’s on the table?

Rescue packages and financial regulation remain in the headlines. Seeking to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis of early 2008 onwards, the Basel III requirements have zoomed in on the capital adequacy (capital buffers), leverage ratios and market liquidity (reserves) of banks. Introduced by the Basel Committee’s 27 member countries and others as of […]

Are banking values bankrupt?

It has of late become significantly less glamorous to admit that you work in the banking sector. The banking crisis of 2008 and ensuing world financial crisis have been accompanied by a series of scandals and shocks involving major banks. Think HSBC and drug cartel money, Barclays and Libor, Wegelin and tax evasion. The latter, […]