This text shows that citizens can change the globalized world in the direction of many common values by being a socially conscious investor. The authors argue that in fact globalization is helping create a shared concern for many issues around the planet.
A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital. Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy. Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity. Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change.
The way we think about money has extraordinary impact. This book satisfies the growing longing for a financial overview that can provide practical advice and demonstrate how money is a social tool. Making Money Matter introduces the reader to common money mistakes, and the dysfunctional nature of the current financial framework. Its overview of the SRI world will inspire investors to push their advisors’ envelope while providing new strategies to meet the demand for positive impact. It provides a philosophical basis for transforming our view of money from an end unto itself to a means to change the world for the better. This book traces the author's journey from early financial innocence to an appreciation of how money works and how it can be transformed. People who care about the planet and society at large need a bridge from deeply felt values to practical understanding and advice that will lead to a new money paradigm. This new approach covers all aspects of money from everyday transactions to high impact investment options. It describes a new investment paradigm that will support both reasonable returns and long-term societal and planetary health. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is well established for smaller scale investors in the public space and impact investing for accredited and qualified investors is taking hold in the private-space. Readers want more than flat definitions, and need an inclusive overview that can inspire investors on all levels to move the trillions required for addressing the world’s many dire problems. This book’s unique contribution is a personal, practical and holistic approach to socially conscious investing, which engages the reader in a way that is both healing and empowering. Making Money Matter is designed for mass appeal. First, its biographical, true-confessions format introduces the reader to common money mistakes made by the author, while personalizing the dysfunctional nature of the current financial framework. Secondly, its personalized overview of the countermovement of socially-conscious investment options is designed to inspire investors to push their advisors’ advice-envelope while providing investment managers with practical new strategies to meet the burgeoning demand for positive impact. Finally, this book provides a philosophical basis for the new money paradigm that shows how to transform our view of money from an end unto itself to a means to change the world for the better. This book is aimed at people who are concerned about Wall Street, banking and our current monetary and finance system, average investors, businessmen, progressives, libertarians or fiscal conservatives. However it should be of particular interest to investment professionals looking for new ways of meeting their clients’ needs. Investment managers and consultants need to be educated about this space. This book should be as popular among family office associations as the Chartered Financial Analysts Association. But this book's ultimate goal is to provide inspiration to all levels of investors. Everyone uses money, and the way we think about money has more impact than all the impact investments put together. This thinking needs to change. Just as consumers drove the growth of the local and organic movements, investors will drive the new money paradigm. This may help anyone to begin to think about the real bottom line of every transaction, which is the impact of our actions on the planet - including all living beings that inhabit it.
How institutions and individuals can address complex social, financial, and environmental problems on a systemic level—and invest in a more secure future. Investment today has evolved from the basic, conventional approach of the past. Investors have come to recognize the importance of sustainable investment and are more frequently considering environmental and social factors in their decisions. Yet the complexity of the times forces us to recognize and transition to a third stage of investment practice: system-level investing. In this paradigm-shifting book, William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg show how system-level investors support and enhance the health and stability of the social, financial, and environmental systems on which they depend for long-term returns. They preserve and strengthen these fundamental systems while still generating competitive or otherwise acceptable performance. This book is for those investors who believe in that transition. They may be institutions, large or small, concerned about the long-term stability of the environment and society. They may be individual investors who want their children and grandchildren to inherit a just and sustainable world. Whoever they may be, Burckart and Lydenberg show them the what, why, and how of system-level investment in this book: what it means to manage system-level risks and rewards, why it is imperative to do so now, and how to integrate this new way of thinking into their current practice. “Burckart and Lydenberg are the Wayne Gretzkys of investing: Showing us not where investing is, but where it’s going.” —Jon Lukomnik, Managing Partner, Sinclair Capital; Senior Fellow, High Meadows Institute
“To say Charles Schwab is an entrepreneur is actually an understatement. He really is a revolutionary.”—Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, author of Shoe Dog The founder of The Charles Schwab Corporation recounts his ups and downs as he made stock investing, once the expensive and clubby reserve of the few, accessible to ordinary Americans. In this deeply personal memoir, Schwab describes his passion to have Main Street participate in the growing economy as investors and owners, not only earners. Schwab opens up about his dyslexia and how he worked around and ultimately embraced it, and about the challenges he faced while starting his fledgling company in the 1970s. A year into his grand experiment in discounted stock trading, living in a small apartment in Sausalito with his wife, Helen, and new baby, he carried a six-figure debt and a pocketful of personal loans. As it turned out, customers flocked to Schwab, leaving his small team scrambling with scarce resources and no road map to manage the company’s growth. He recounts the company’s game-changing sale to Bank of America—and how, in the end, the merger almost doomed his organization. We learn about the clever and timely leveraged buyout he crafted to regain independence; the crushing stock market collapse of 1987, just weeks after the company had gone public; the dot-com meltdown of 2000 and its reverberating aftermath of economic stagnation, layoffs, and the company’s eventual reinvention; and how the company’s focus on managing risk protected it and its clients during the financial crisis in 2008, propelling its growth. A remarkable story of a company succeeding by challenging norms and conventions through decades of change, Invested also offers unique insights and lifelong principles for readers—the values that Schwab has lived and worked by that have made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. Today, his eponymous company is one of the leading financial services firms in the world. Advance praise for Invested “I’ve admired Chuck Schwab for a long time. When you read this book, you’ll understand why.”—Warren E. Buffett “This is a fascinating story that teaches you about the never-ending evolution of an entrepreneurial company, but even more about personal learning from that experience. So read, learn how to learn from experience, and enjoy.”—George P. Shultz, former secretary of Labor, Treasury, and State
This book illustrates the impact that a focus on environmental and social issues has on both de-risking assets and fostering innovation. Including impact as a new cornerstone of the investment triangle requires investors and clients to align interests and values and understand needs. This alignment process functions as a catalyst for transforming organizational culture within an organization and therefore initiates the external impact of the organization, but also its internal transformation, which in turn escalates the creation of impact. Describing how culture is the social glue permeating all disciplines of an organization, the book demonstrates how organizational alignment can be achieved in order to allow strategic speed, innovation and learning, and provides examples of how impact can be achieved and staff mobilized It particularly focuses on impact investing, impact entrepreneurship, innovation, de-risking asset, green investment solutions and investor movements to counteract climate change and implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting culture, communication, and strategy.
Take the stress out of investing with this revolutionary new strategy from the author of The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing, now in its fifth edition. In today’s troubling economic times, the quality of our retirement depends upon our own portfolio management. But for most of us, investing can be stressful and confusing, especially when supposedly expert predictions fail. Enter The 3% Signal. Simple and effective, Kelly’s plan can be applied to any type of account, including 401(k)s—and requires only fifteen minutes of strategizing per quarter. No stress. No noise. No confusion. By targeting three percent growth and adjusting holdings to meet that goal, even novice investors can level the financial playing field and ensure a secure retirement free from the stress of noisy advice that doesn't work. The plan's simple technique cuts through the folly of human emotion by reacting intelligently to price changes and automatically buying low and selling high. Relayed in the same easy-to-understand language that has made The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing such a staple in the investing community, The 3% Signal is sure to become your most trusted guide to investing success.
Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters tells the story of how Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) revolutionized the investing world and the real economy, but is now showing its age. MPT has no mechanism to understand its impacts on the environmental, social and financial systems, nor any tools for investors to mitigate the havoc that systemic risks can wreck on their portfolios. It’s time for MPT to evolve. The authors propose a new imperative to improve finance’s ability to fulfil its twin main purposes: providing adequate returns to individuals and directing capital to where it is needed in the economy. They show how some of the largest investors in the world focus not on picking stocks, but on mitigating systemic risks, such as climate change and a lack of gender diversity, so as to improve the risk/return of the market as a whole, despite current theory saying that should be impossible. "Moving beyond MPT" recognizes the complex relations between investing and the systems on which capital markets rely, "Investing that matters" embraces MPT’s focus on diversification and risk adjusted return, but understands them in the context of the real economy and the total return needs of investors. Whether an investor, an MBA student, a Finance Professor or a sustainability professional, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters is thought-provoking and relevant. Its bold critique shows how the real world already is moving beyond investing orthodoxy.
Leading experts from across the denominational spectrum offer wisdom on socially-responsible investing. Congregations and religious institutions are asking how to invest in their future and grow their endowed and invested funds, while also focusing on their values. This book will help religious leaders better understand all of the many issues and opportunities involved in making their investment choices reflect their faith-in-action. A unique collaboration of voices from multiple Christian denominations share their experiences, perspectives, and resources, making this book an invaluable guide for church leaders who want to feel more informed and empowered. Topics include an explanation of the differences between SRI and ESG; crafting an investment policy; shareholder engagement; areas of investment such as diversity and women’s empowerment; human rights; human trafficking; climate change; social justice; community engagement; and more. Faithful Investing offers action steps for church finance directors to make the world, nation, and their local communities healthier, more vibrant, and more equitable. For access to the resources noted in the book, please visit http://www.murphyjw.com.
As the world faces unprecedented challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, the resources needed far outstrip the capabilities of nonprofits and even governments. Yet there are seeds of hope—and much of that hope comes from the efforts of the private sector. Impact investing is rapidly becoming an essential tool, alongside philanthropy and government funding, in tackling these major problems. Valuing Nature presents a new set of nature-based investment areas to help conservationists and investors work together. NatureVest founder William Ginn outlines the emerging private sector investing opportunities in natural assets such as green infrastructure, forests, soils, and fisheries. The first part of Valuing Nature examines the scope of nature-based impact investing while also presenting a practical overview of its limitations and the challenges facing the private sector. The second part of the book offers tools for investors and organizations to consider as they develop their own projects and tips on how nonprofits can successfully navigate this new space. Case studies from around the world demonstrate how we can use private capital to achieve more sustainable uses of our natural resources without the unintended consequences plaguing so many of our current efforts. Valuing Nature provides a roadmap for conservation professionals, nonprofit managers, and impact investors seeking to use market-based strategies to improve the management of natural systems.