Catching Our Eye | January 18
‘Catching Our Eye’ is a monthly collection of curated content from Invest for Better. This collection was featured in our January 18, 2023 e-newsletter.
EVENTS
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos) is happening now. Follow the event here.
Join Criterion Institute for a live virtual training on January 23-24, 2023 for “Using Finance as a Tool for Social Change.” “Regardless of your starting place, experience, or comfort with finance, you will find that the TOOLKIT workshop creates a much-needed bridge between the worlds of finance and social change.”
Nia Impact presents “Capital Market Trends and Insights For The Year Ahead” on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. Nia will share “information on the current winds affecting the markets and discuss the latest developments in the ESG movement.”
“Causal Pathways: Discovering How, Why, and When Our Strategies Matter” by Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) is happening on January 25, 2023. In this complimentary session, SSIR will look at the concept of causal pathways to explore how philanthropists, nonprofits, and evaluators pinpoint how change really occurs, even in complex, systems-focused initiatives.
VentureCapital.org‘s “40th Anniversary Investors Choice Conference and Ski Day” is happening on February 23-24, 2023.
Aspen Ideas: Climate 2023 is a solutions-focused event designed for thinkers and doers whose ideas and actions are critical to addressing our collective future around the realities of a changing climate. Happening March 6-9, 2023.
CERES Global Conference is happening on March 22-24, 2023 – “where capital market leaders come together to create a more just and sustainable world.”
Feminist Funded 2023: Rising is September 10-14, 2023. This signature event from the Women’s Funding Network will bring together thought leaders in philanthropy, advocacy, and culture.
ARTICLES
The VentureCapital.Org Board of Trustees announced that it has appointed Tara Spalding (and IFB member) as interim Chief Executive Officer. Tara led the acquisition of BoomStartup Accelerator. She also has extensive experience as a founder and as a funder.
“On its own, the mighty Amazon jungle could capture around 600 million tons of CO2 per year, says Tasso Azevedo, one of Brazil’s leading environmental advocates”. Tasso founded MapBiomas, a coalition of NGOs, universities, and tech companies that harness technology to track land use and degradation across the vastness and diversity of Brazil. (video)
From the World Economic Forum, “Gender equality in STEM can support a sustainable economy. Here’s how.”
We’ve seen lots of year-end summaries, but Goldman Sachs Research economists recently published a report that looks much further ahead — to 2075. They foresee a world in which global economic expansion slows as population growth declines. Emerging economies, and powerhouses in Asia in particular, are forecast to keep catching up to richer countries.
Bloomberg notes that women, for the first time, held 32% of board seats in the S&P 500 (as of November 2022).
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, an economist with over 50 years of experience and the former chair of the Federal Reserve, in an interview with 60 Minutes. “Yellen knows better than most about the delicate balance of trying to engineer an economy that keeps inflation at bay without causing widespread layoffs and a downturn.”
“10 Reasons Why ESG Won’t Be Stopped” by Morningstar. “Although demonized, ESG and sustainable investing will survive the backlash.”
From the New York Times “How Sexism Influenced Corporate Governance” – “Early in the 20th century, many owners of the iconic companies of the day were women. Before the 1929 stock market crash, female shareholders outnumbered male shareholders at AT&T, General Electric, … But men had little respect for women’s ability to exercise their rights as owners to discipline company management … This combination — the feminization of capital and men’s disdain for it — has had repercussions right up to today.” (see original research)
“Ideas That Shaped 2022” by Financial Security Program at the Aspen Institute.
The US SIF Foundation’s 14th edition of the biennial Report on US Sustainable Investing Trends identifies $8.4 trillion in total US sustainable investment AUM at the beginning of 2022. This represents 13 percent of the total US assets under professional management.
