Episode 127: Joel Moreland - Social and Environmental Finance Consultant - When Prudence Meets Urgency

Joel Moreland is a Principal Consultant at Social and Environmental Finance.

He has worked in early stage investing, corporate finance, fund management and mainstream banking. In this discussion we start with how he was born into a culture of activism, thanks to the work his parents had done, and then delve into a broad and multi-faceted discussion about the issue of climate change and the various steps being taken to address it.

Joel's view is that the main issue is "urgency" - the urgency of the problem and the lack of understanding that the naturally conservative approach being taken by scientists in the modeling, arguably, requires much greater action by investors. 

We talk about lobbying, the multi-lateral policy changes that are on the horizon, and the difference that concerted action by like-minded investors can make.

We learn about the mindset of "doing good" and how it is sometimes incompatible with generating a profit or making a return, and how we need to adapt our services and communication to make progress more likely.

We talk about the innovations inherent in climate tech, how being a techno-optimist is not enough anymore and how regulatory change can make a real, positive difference. It is a discussion that blends both high level directions of travel and specific examples of what is going well and less well amid the current environmental challenges. 

Series 1 of the 2022 Fiftyfaces Podcast is brought to you with the kind support of Heard Capital, a Chicago-based asset manager invests in public equities in the technology, media, telecommunication, financial and industrial sectors.The firm was founded in 2011 and manages assets via a long/short fund and a long-only fund.