Sustainable Investing History
The ICCR was founded in 1971 by lawyer Paul Neuhauser to oppose apartheid in South Africa. Neuhauser wrote a shareholder proposal for General Motors on behalf of the Episcopal Church, calling on GM to withdraw business from South Africa until apartheid was abolished.
NASA Scientist James Hansen told the US Senate that global warming was underway. He projected the global temperature increases to come from burning fossil fuels and urged that action be taken to reduce fossil fuel use. This was reported on the front page of the NY Times the next day…
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held its inaugural meeting in November 1988. The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It was charged with providing ongoing assessments of: the state of scientific knowledge and information on climate change the…
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In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Joan Bavaria gathered a group of investors and environmentalists to establish Ceres, the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible Economies.
The GHG Protocol was created by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It has created global standardized frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private and public sector operations and value chains .
Seven Northeast states agreed to establish a mandatory cap & trade system covering emissions from the electric power sector. RGGI was the first such mandatory carbon market in the United States.
The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) was launched at the NY Stock Exchange. PRI was was created by group of institutional investors convened by the UN Secretary General in 2005.
The enactment of AB32 committed California to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The legislation empowered the California Air Resources Board to adopt regulations that would achieve "the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective GHG emission reductions". With this legislation, California was the first state to set legally-binding caps…
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The landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, also known as the Waxman-Markey for its authors and sponsors, Henry Waxman (CA) and Ed Markey (MA), passed in the US House of Representatives. It was blocked and never voted on in the Senate. Had it been enacted, it would have established…
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With the achievement of the 2020 GHG emissions targets set in 2006, SB32 adopted new targets, committing the state to reducing GHG emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
Recognizing that our society and economy depend on natural capital - nature's assets and the services they provide - the TNFD was established to "provide companies and financial institutions with a risk management and disclosure framework to identify, assess, manage and, where appropriate, disclose nature-related issues".
The VRF and CDSB will consolidate with the ISSB.
ISSB releases exposure drafts for two proposed initial standards to create a “comprehensive global baseline of sustainability-related disclosures designed to meet the information needs of investors in assessing enterprise value" S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information S2 Climate-related Disclosures ISSB announces that it plans to build on…
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150 nations met for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montreal, Canada. They agreed to set four goals and twenty-four 2030 targets to preserve, protect and rebuild global biodiversity, including: Protecting 30% of earth's lands oceans, coastal areas & inland waters Reducing harmful annual government subsidies by $500…
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The IPCC 6th assessment report on climate change clearly and unequivocally concludes that there are multiple, feasible and effective options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change. Cutting global GHG emissions by nearly half by 2030 is practical and achievable. Reducing emissions and implementing necessary adaptions…
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In June 2023, the ISSB released finalized standards for sustainability and climate-related disclosures: General Sustainability-related Disclosure (S1) Climate-related Disclosures (S2) The standards became effective as of January 1, 2024.
The Task Force for Nature-related Financial Disclosures released its final standards. The TNFD disclosure framework consists of conceptual foundations for nature-related disclosures, a set of general requirements, a set of recommended disclosures structured around the four recommendation pillars of governance, strategy, risk and impact management, and metrics and targets.
The 28th Conference of the Parties in Dubai completed a first "global stocktake" of the world's status and progress since the Paris accords. Recognizing that progress has been insufficient to reach the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees centrigrade, the concluding agreement called for countries to recommit to…
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