Sustainability Now

The COVID‐19 pandemic has overshadowed the opioid epidemic in the US, but the opioid crisis in the has grown during the pandemic creating more problems for communities and companies that have been blamed for the crisis. During the 2021 proxy season, companies are disclosing more opioid related liabilities to shareholders causing dissent in some cases. We discuss both the opioid epidemic and these shareholder reactions. Then, as a new controversial voting rights law is passed in the US state of Georgia, we discuss why some companies wade into politics and others stay away.

A ship blocked the entire Suez Canal! To honor that, we discuss the ESG of marine shipping, the industry that handles 90% of the world's shipping. And then we discuss how billion‐dollar leverage bets by a family investment office called Archegos exposed a major systemic risk in the banking industry.

Industries like steel and cement are some of the most important sectors and largest emitters of carbon dioxide. This is due both to the molecular makeup of their products and a possible lack of effort in finding viable low-carbon solutions. In this episode we discuss if hydrogen, the molecule that helps power the sun, can help lower our Industrial emissions.

Most of the largest online education companies are based in China. As the industry gets larger, so too does pushes for regulation and concern that companies are spending more on advertising than they are on educating their students. We discuss what this might mean for the industry’s future. And then we discuss the push by Yum! Brands to eliminate antibiotics from its massive meat supply chain.

New research about sustained board gender diversity suggests that companies with more people that identify as women demonstrated a stronger track record on reducing carbon emission than their sector peers. We discuss this finding and what it means for the future of board gender diversity. Then we hear from five primary care givers about how they have fared during the pandemic.

How a company sets CEO pay is an important function of its board of directors. When its effective, pay can align a CEOs interests with the strategic goals of the companies it runs. When its ineffective, CEOs can take home millions while their company flounders and fails. In this episode, we discussed new research on how effective CEO pay has been between the years of 2006 to 2020. And then we discuss whether oil rigs are safer now than I the past.

As Schneider Electric and LafargeHolcim issue their first sustainability‐linked bonds, we ask how to tell apart a marketing exercise from a genuine effort to improve. And for Amazon, the transition of founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos into the role of executive chair may have kicked up more questions than answers.

As Texas continues to suffer from power outages caused by a rare cold front, we discuss how energy grid resiliency plays an important role in preparing for the effects of climate change. And then we discuss the feasibility of the announcement by auto manufacturer GM that it will only sell electric vehicles by 2035.

Exxon has pledged to step up its carbon capture efforts, but climate‐focused investors may be keeping their champagne on ice. And although the COVID‐19 pandemic may have spurred a government veto, we take a look at why this is not necessarily a new phenomenon in the murky intersection between shareholder rights and national interests.

Japan announced that they would be recommissioning their nuclear power plants in order to meet their 2050 net zero goals. We discuss what the ESG implications of this decision are and how nuclear is viewed in the sustainable investment world. Then we discuss why Facebook is so pissed at Apple.