Building a credible market for nature-based carbon offsets
Fast reading New UN standards for international carbon markets agreed at COP29 to boost credibility. Due diligence is critical for assessing the quality of nature-based carbon offset projects. While high-quality projects often require more significant investment and longer timeframes, they are essential to ensure a meaningful climate impact. In the first article in this series […]
What was achieved at COP29?
Fast reading Carbon market rulebook should bolster confidence among investors and project developers, including companies formulating credible offsetting strategies. Blended finance approach crucial for opening up commercial decarbonisation pathways for companies and investors operating outside advanced developed nations. Muted response to the Global Stocktake exacerbates uncertainty over the shape and pace of the energy transition. […]
What is nature-based carbon offsetting?
Fast reading The demand for nature-based carbon offsetting is set to rise, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors. Potential benefits include nature restoration, biodiversity protection and improved water and air quality, as well as job creation and economic development. Key challenges include measurement and verification, and ensuring that the carbon remains locked away for a significant period. […]
Stewardship: a coming of age
2025 Outlook
A new frontier for stewardship
Stewardship has travelled a long way over the last two decades, and while it has not always been smooth sailing, when done well it has delivered positive outcomes for investors, companies and society as a whole. But active ownership is not without its challenges. Although these have changed over the years, it is instructive to […]
Engagement has a crucial role to play in the green transition
Fast reading Encouraging carbon-intensive companies to implement decarbonisation strategies is crucial to bringing down global emissions and supporting the transition to net zero. Investors are in an important position to affect real change among high-emitting companies through purposeful and effective engagement. The greatest potential for improvement lies with small- and mid-cap (SMID) companies, in our […]
An unquenchable thirst
Water is critical for life on earth. It supports biodiversity by sustaining habitats, enables agricultural and industrial processes, and is a critical resource for human consumption and sanitation. But treating water as if it were an infinite resource can drain ancient aquifers dry and reduce rivers to little more than a trickle, hurting communities and […]
Too risky to cover?
For decades, physical risk insurers and reinsurers have priced their premiums using complex probability models informed by past events. In some years, earthquakes and hurricanes might lead to bigger claims than expected, but over the long term, the pricing models would ensure that profits and losses were smoothed out. Yet the rapidity with which the […]
Public Engagement Report Q3 2024
Fast reading Insurers are exiting certain markets as physical climate risks rise and losses mount. EOS asks insurers to demonstrate how they embed climate-related considerations into their product design and pricing, as well as their capital adequacy decisions. With insurance losses from hurricanes Milton and Helene expected to run into the billions, and extensive flooding […]
Making the moat of it
An investing concept widely associated with Warren Buffett, feted CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is to find companies with wide ‘economic moats’. Generally speaking, these are the kind of companies that have developed advantages allowing them to defend their profitability against encroaching competition. A strong brand identity (created through advertising and marketing expense) might be one […]
