Good Future

Rachel Etherington is a committed advocate for sustainable investing, she understands impact, ESG and the SDGs, but she’s also enthusiastic. Rachel is a specialist financial advisor at Crestone, she helps her clients manage their wealth inline with their values, but that’s only half the story. She’s on the board of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, and she’s on the board of Future Super.

Every time I speak with Rachel I come away a little bit wiser about the world of sustainability and finance, but more than that, I come away with a renewed sense of optimism. And today’s chat was no different. I really hope you enjoy it.

For all the show-notes and links, jump onto my website at www.Johntreadgold.com

And, you can leave us a review on iTunes, because that helps to spread the message of the show.

And someone else who’s helping spread the message is RIAA, that’s the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia. They have over 300 members managing more than $9 trillion in assets globally, they’re the largest network of people and organisations engaged in responsible, ethical and impact investing across Australia and New Zealand. They do great work and they’ve come on board to help support a series of upcoming episodes featuring the leading names in responsible investing.

Head to www.ResponsibleInvestment.org to find out all about it.

Enjoy the show!

Michael Traill is one of the founding-heroes of impact investing in Australia. He led a pioneering finance deal in 2009 which bought out the assets of the struggling child-care company ABC Learning. He revived the business as Goodstart Early learning, which remains Australia’s biggest child-care centre group. And a foundational story of impact investing in Australia.

Since then the sector has grown, and last year the Federal government setup a taskforce to make recommendations about what they can do to help nurture impact investing. And in their wisdom, they made Michael the chair.

The taskforce published an interim report at the end of 2019 and final recommendations were due to be released in the middle 0f 2020. But covid-19 put a spanner in the works, and the report’s been delayed.

So, with lots of my listeners eager to hear about progress, I thought now would be a great time to invite Michael onto the show.

As usual all the show notes are on my website at www.Johntreadgold.com

Enjoy

I have Viktor Shvets on the show today. He not only runs Macquarie Bank’s office in Hong Kong, but he’s also written a book.

It’s called “The Great Rupture: Three Empires, Four Turning Points, and the Future of Humanity”, it’s an impressive read, it pulls together history, economics, geo-politics and psychology to try and map how the mis-steps of key empires, in the past, can help us prepare for a very uncertain future.

Viktor doesn’t shy away from the big issues in his book, and we cover it all in this episode. He offers one of the best explanations I’ve heard for the origins and the impacts of the debt-bomb that’s been building ever since Alan Greenspan’s infamous Put, that began pumping money into the financial system, in response to the 1987 stock market crash.

And while the debt continues to grow today, of course the big question is, when will the music stop?

We go deep on this episode. We look at the History of China, it’s missed opportunities to globalize many centuries ago, and its rapid rise in the new information age.

And, I quiz Viktor about whether our addiction to economic growth is compatible with a healthy environment. It seems clear that the financialisation of our world means we’ve pushed beyond the carrying capacity of our eco-system. So, can we step away from the brink, before it’s too late?

All the show notes are on my website at www.johntreadgold.com, plus, a long list of book recommendations from Viktor.

Enjoy!

I have the co-directors of the Yunus Centre at Griffith University on the show today. Ingrid Burkett and Alex Hannant have published a paper called Roadmap to Recovery and Regeneration, it recognises that right now is a pivotal moment for renewal.

Ingrid Burkett has a masters in business and she’s a graphic designer. She uses design-thinking to drive innovation and entrepreneurialism across all aspects of social impact.

She was previously President of the International Association for Community Development, and she was the Inaugural Social Design Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact at UNSW and UWA.

Alex Hannant has a Masters in Development, and his research is focused on social entrepreneurship.

Alex was previously CEO of the Ākina Foundation in New Zealand, and he serves on the Board of B-Lab Australia and New Zealand.

I really enjoyed this conversation, these two are clearly a great team, with complimentary skill-sets and a united vision for what they hope the Yunus Centre can achieve.

All the papers and articles are at: www.Johntreadgold.com

And if you feel the urge, please leave a review on iTunes, because it helps more people find the show.

Enjoy!

John Elkington has been at the forefront of environmental research, advocacy and writing since the 70’s. He launched a consulting company called SustainAbility, long before the term had become the buzzword that it is today. He’s a writer, a speaker, and a provocateur.

A lot of his work has been in corporate sustainability, helping companies adapt and innovate amid environmental and social change.

Plus, he written a new book, it’s called Green Swans. It riffs on the concept of Black Swans, popularized by Nassim Taleb. But instead of representing unexpected catastrophic events, Green Swans represent an opportunity, for positive change.

In this episode, we discussed:

• The seismic shifts occurring in 2020, and the prospects for the decade to be one of huge change, “The exponential decade”.

• Why incumbent industries resist change, even when they can foresee their own demise.

• The importance of government to legislate for clean-energy.

• And the sad reality that government’s may need to pay big dollars to keep fossil fuels in the ground (akin to how the slave-trade was ended).

• Change comes from the edge of systems, disruptors aren’t going to be found in big-multi-national companies.

• Is the human brain capable of dealing with a challenge like climate change? Or should we use artificial intelligence to take-over where we have failed?

• John’s early years, and how he quit economics to pursue environmental management.

• His work in corporate sustainability, and his role as ‘the grit in the oyster’, to drive change in organisations, where there are incentives to stick with the status-quo.

• The power of science-fiction to predict the future. And the rise of Chinese sci-fi as the most prescient looking-glass.

Enjoy, and be sure to let me know your thoughts over at www.johntreadgold.com

There’s plenty of uncertainty in the world right now, but optimism is returning. We’ve got a battered economy, and lots of people out of work, but for impact investors, that’s an opportunity. It’s a chance to build-back better.

The Responsible Investment Association of Australasia, aka RIAA, have just released their Benchmarking Impact report for 2020. So I’ve managed to wrangle the CEO, Simon O’Connor, to come back on the show and tell us all about it.

The report captures the full spectrum of work being done on impact investing in Australia. It looks backward to gauge performance, as well as forwards, laying out expectations of the country’s most progressive investors.

Simon’s no stranger to the podcast, he’s been on before discussing his role as co-chair of the Australia Sustainable Finance Initiative. And he was very generous to jump on without much notice.

Have a listen, and then jump onto the website at www.johntreadgold.com to find a link to the report.

Enjoy!

Bronwyn King is not a fund manager, she’s a doctor. Nonetheless she’s led a personal crusade to help the finance industry to wise up about the true impacts of investing in smoking. And as of last year her team were responsible for getting a massive $1.3 trillion in pension dollars to be invested under tobacco-free policies.

Cigarettes kill millions of people every year. And the unfortunate truth is that many Australians actually have money invested in these companies. Whether they know it or not, many super funds still have big holdings in big tobacco.

Dr King is a true influencer. She speaks with confidence and conviction, she’s backed up by piles of research and she’s isn’t easily intimidated. She’s honed her pitch in board rooms, at the UN and even on the TedX stage.

Bronwyn knows well the semantic gymnastics that can be played to dodge questions about how tobacco companies can make it into ESG funds. But this is not an issue that can be dealt with through engagement, there’s no healthy dose of smoking.

And please note that this episode was recorded on the 4th of March, was well before the corona virus restrictions were in force. It would be the last time I was able to record in the studio. Hopefully, we’ll be back in there soon.

For all the show notes, go to www.johntreadgold.com

Enjoy!

I’ve wanted to have Phil Vernon on the show ever since I started this podcast. Phil was CEO of Australian Ethical investments for ten years before he stood-down last year.

Australian Ethical has been hugely influential in the responsible investment industry, through leading the discussion on how to invest ethically, while also offering a superannuation option that makes you money for your retirement, and, ensuring the environment is in good shape when you finish working.

They’re no charity, they’re a for-profit business, and under Phil’s control they saw the company’s market cap boom from $20 million to almost $300 million today.

Phil’s the real deal. In the lead-up to the GFC he was deep in the world of finance, working in securitisation, and so he saw all too clearly the greed and excess that built into a debt bubble, that was always going to blow up.

Phil saw the light and moved over to Australian ethical in 2009 where he helped build and shape an ethical approach to finance in Australia.

He weathered the GFC, but with excellent timing, he stood down last year, and so avoided being a CEO amid a global health pandemic. That’s not to say he’s not been busy. We discussed his work with Beyond Zero Emissions, as well as his work with startups. And Phil will always be a strong advocate for building an ethical path for finance, for battling climate change and empowering people to invest in line with their values.

The show notes are all on my web site at www.johntreadgold.com

And if you’re keen to help spread the word, please leave a review on itunes. It’ll only take you 30 seconds, and it really does help spread the word.

Enjoy!

Remy Briand is head of ESG at MSCI. It’s one of the world’s leading stock market index providers and they assess more than 7,500 companies on their ESG performance.

Remy lives in Geneva and he’s an outspoken advocate for the importance of considering environmental, social and governance factors when making investment decisions.

In the world of responsible investing, there’s one data point that’s quoted more than any other, it says: that over the past ten years, Sustainable investment funds have earned better returns than their mainstream peers. It’s great news, but today I want to go deeper. I want to look at how we define sustainable companies and how they’ve fared in the market crash brought on by the corona virus.

Remy is a wealth of information and insights about the evolution of ESG investing. We don’t shy away from digging into the more technical details about sustainable investing frameworks, and both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

I really learned a lot in this one. Remy pulled me up on a number of assumptions that I’d made. and It was really valuable to get a broader view into how we can extend the adoption of the ESG approach, and expand the breadth of metrics we use to gauge the performance of the companies we invest in.

The show notes are on my website at www.Johntreadgold.com, and be sure to head over to my LinkedIn page to continue the discussion.

Enjoy!

Roger Montgomery is one of Australia’s leading fund managers, he’s an author, a regular economic commentator and he’s been watching the corona virus situation unfold… long before it hit the headlines.

He’s the founder and CEO of Montgomery Investment Management, he manages money for individuals and families, and it’s great to get a chance to speak to him as we watch financial markets go through a historic correction, after a decade long bull run.

For all my listeners out there, I wanted to bring you a deeper look at what’s going on, in the stock market, to get insights from experts who are at the coal-face, but also, to explore how sustainable investments and ESG funds have performed after a decade of strong returns.

Now Roger shared his thoughts on the corona virus and its impacts. We dug into the government’s response, as well as how small businesses and the hospitality industry can be helped through this crisis.

I also wanted to go deep on the period since the GFC of 2009 when interest rates were cut to zero. Since then interest rates and wage growth have stayed low. While asset prices have headed to record highs, and I wanted to know why. But also, where we go next, as central banks around the world have fired all their ammunition, and now have very few options to stimulate the economy.

The show notes are on my website at www.johntreadgold.com

Enjoy