Two incredible days
Two incredible days at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) Conference - the largest responsible investment gathering in the Southern Hemisphere examining how greenwashing risks and shifting geopolitics are reshaping ESG investment strategies globally and in Australia.
As someone new to the Responsible Investment space, having delved into the content whilst building the RIAA website this year, I was curious to see how many of the frameworks I'm familiar with from ESG strategy translated into frameworks for investment decision-making.
Before the conference, the geo-political shifts on impact, DEI and ESG have worried me - the backslide, oh the backslide! Leaving the conference though, my spirits are lifted. These shifts are creating an opportunity for Australia and our region to step up to the plate in climate leadership.
Coining the phrase ESG
Paul Clements-Hunt, the person credited with coining the term ‘ESG’, hooked me from the first keynote that was funny and informative. Hearing "the UN SDG #17 'partnerships for the goals' should be #1" and "we should have made it GES, not ESG - because if you get governance wrong, then you get nothing else right."
Does nature only have value when it's dead?
The nature sessions were equally compelling. Marco Lambertini from the Nature Positive Initiative delivered a powerful reminder that "we view nature's only assumed value as when it's dead. Like fish have value when they're killed, cooked and eaten. This is what we need to change, to recognise the value nature has when it's alive." 💥
Takeaways
I spent time over the last few days aggressively adding to Notion my key takeaways, things to Google later, and quotes from speakers as quickly and as accurately as my thumbs could manage.
Some things on my post-conference to-do list:
📖 Purchase Tyson Yunkaporta's book Sand Talk - I'm still thinking about the ants laying paths that the echidnas follow.
🔋 Grab some shares related to the battery supply chain
🔍 Check out where my superfund actually invests my money - with the mindfulmoney.nz tool from Barry Coates & team (currently only for Kiwisaver, maybe Australia/global one day!)
🤞 Hold the hope - Darren Grover of WWF-Australia reminded us that "there's a lot of negative news and stories out there about nature. And this can make it feel harder. But there are a lot of good things happening, people out there doing good things"
🧠 Creativity and collaboration is a superpower - bringing in different people with different expertise and skillsets will make a more robust and holistic ecosystem
