Institutional Impact
photo: World Economic Forum
Institutional Impact | March 16, 2023
In Larry Fink’s letter to investors, ESG is the business imperative that dare not speak its name
ImpactAlpha, March 16 – Don’t expect BlackRock to back off from ESG any time soon. Even if the acronym appears nowhere in chairman …
Institutional Impact | February 22, 2023
University of California’s rescue of Blackstone’s REIT exposes rot at the core of institutional asset management
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Newly elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy
Institutional Impact | January 11, 2023
GOP ditches ‘pro-business’ with attacks on ESG that hurt corporations, investors – and red states
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Institutional Impact | November 22, 2022
Beware of paper billionaires bearing gifts, and other lessons of the FTX implosion
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of the …
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. Credit: Patagonia
Institutional Impact | October 12, 2022
How Patagonia’s private plan for the public good inadvertently reveals the limits of impact investing
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of the …
Institutional Impact | September 19, 2022
Walmart heir’s foundation joins small club aligning endowment with mission
The foundation of Walmart heir Lukas Walton has reached its goal of aligning 90% of its $1 billion endowment with its philanthropic initiative. …
Institutional Impact | September 1, 2022
My summer fun: Parsing the proposals to regulate ESG
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of the …
Institutional Impact | July 13, 2022
ESG and its discontents: A defense of HSBC banker Stuart Kirk and a critique of ESG orthodoxy
Stuart Kirk has had enough. Last week, Kirk resigned as HSBC’s head of sustainability, saying his position had become unsustainable. The news wasn’t …
Institutional Impact | July 7, 2022
The politics and power of asset management lead straight to the U.S. Supreme Court
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Washington, D.C. | Photo credit: Drew Petrimoulx
Institutional Impact | May 24, 2022
Tracing a line from the lack of diversity in asset management to the undoing of Roe v. Wade
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Vladimir Putin and EN+ Group's Oleg Deripaska
Institutional Impact | April 11, 2022
The curious case of the U.S. ESG critic at the head of a Russian aluminum conglomerate
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Institutional Impact | March 15, 2022
Divestment gets a reboot as global investors dump Russian assets
The scenes of brutal shelling and bombardment, along with heroic resistance and popular protests, have triggered a global response of solidarity and support. …
Institutional Impact | February 14, 2022
If crypto is the Wild West of finance, impact investing is the country club
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Institutional Impact | February 3, 2022
Race to the Top: How responsible asset allocators are investing for a better world
This post by Scott Kalb of New America is in response to “O Canada, how do your pension plans get high ESG scores …
Alberta Tar Sands | Photo credit: Russ Heinl
Institutional Impact | January 24, 2022
O Canada, how do your pension plans get high ESG scores when you’re up to your neck in tar-sands oil?
When in doubt, publish a list. It’s a media truism. The trick works for not-for-profits too. New America, a Washington D.C. think tank, …
Institutional Impact | January 5, 2022
Long live ESG! ESG is dead! ESG is… stepping up?
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
A video grab from footage broadcast by the UK Parliament's Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU) shows former Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq testifying in front of a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee in London | Photo credit: AFP PHOTO / PRU
Institutional Impact | December 16, 2021
Not Cricket: Diversity in asset management must be more than woke signaling
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Institutional Impact | November 8, 2021
Oil and inflation challenge green investors, as what goes down does come up
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Alok Sharma, President of COP26 | Photo credit: Cubankite
Institutional Impact | October 14, 2021
Keep Calm and Carry On: The British are coming for climate change (so long as their asset managers do the heavy lifting)
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Enbridge Line 3 pipeline | Photo credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
Institutional Impact | September 16, 2021
Target Enbridge, not Exxon, to prevent the lock-in of high-carbon infrastructure
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Photo credit: YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV
Institutional Impact | September 6, 2021
Some of pension funds’ spectacular returns are coming at the expense of their own beneficiaries
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
Institutional Impact | August 16, 2021
Speaking truth to power should not be career suicide for ESG professionals
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and strategies of …
James Coulter, co-founder of TPG Capital | Photo credit: CNBC
Institutional Impact | July 19, 2021
The education of Jim Coulter, or: How private equity learned to stop worrying and love ESG
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Empire State Building in New York City | Photo by William Wachter on Unsplash
Institutional Impact | June 15, 2021
Another election, another flurry of climate activity from New York City’s pension plans
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Bill McGlashan
Institutional Impact | May 25, 2021
In a world where fairness is in short supply, a star’s fall isn’t enough to redeem private equity
Editor’s note: Contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, continues her bi-weekly column, Institutional Impact, exploring the policies, practices …
Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh in 2017 | Photo credit: AFP
Institutional Impact | May 10, 2021
How do you solve a problem like MBS? Saudi Arabia presents a governance risk impact investors can’t ignore
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Institutional Impact | April 26, 2021
Sustainability is at risk when asset managers are the judge, jury and executors of the ESG agenda
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
UC chief investment officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher | Photo credit: UC
Institutional Impact | April 5, 2021
‘Fossil-fuel free’ endowments and pension funds are rarely free of fossil fuels. Here’s why that’s a problem.
Editor’s note: Contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, continues her bi-weekly column, Institutional Impact, exploring the policies, practices …
Institutional Impact | March 16, 2021
Why pension funds and other Amazon investors are backing the workers in union battle
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, is kicking off a bi-weekly column on the policies, …