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Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 |
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Author: Robert Rubinstein If you have difficulty reading this email, click here |
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The Global Voice of ESG & Impact Investing |
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 Be Kind, Not Nice — And Why That Distinction Might Save Your Soul (And Maybe the Planet)Listen to the article as audio file A man came to see me today. He had been at his bank long enough to know the rhythm of the elevators and the names of the coffee machines. He had a title that meant something. He had a salary that meant more. And he was leaving. Not because he had been pushed, not because he had been bored, but because he had finally admitted to himself that he was no longer willing to spend the second half of his life optimising spreadsheets for people who were busy strip-mining the only planet he had ever been issued. He wanted to work on true nature-based solutions. He wanted to build something that actually deposited life back into the system instead of withdrawing it. He wanted, in the language people use when they finally stop lying to themselves, his big purpose. He told me he reached out because of a piece I wrote — Conservation vs. Restoration — where I argued, as politely as a hammer, that we have fallen in love with the wrong verb. Restoration is photogenic. Conservation is cheap, fast, and unglamorous. We fund the wrong one because the right one cannot be securitised. He said the piece moved him. Then he said something else. He said: "Robert, what I really appreciate is that you are willing to speak the radical truth to the financial community. You shake it up. You don't perform. You are kind, but you are not necessarily nice." He told me to watch a clip on YouTube — Trevor Noah and Simon Sinek, twelve minutes, on the difference between being kind and being nice. I watched it. He was right. Most people use the words kind and nice interchangeably, the way they use ESG and Impact interchangeably, and it costs them just as much. They are not the same word. They are not even close. Nice is a performance. Kind is a posture. Nice is what you do to be liked. Kindness is what you do because someone needs it — whether or not they like you for it afterwards. Nice is fundamentally about the self: managing the room, smoothing the edges, keeping the temperature down, avoiding the awkward silence, saying "great question" when it isn't, saying "interesting perspective" when you think it's nonsense, saying "let's circle back" when you mean no. Kind is fundamentally about the other: telling someone the truth they need to hear before they walk off the cliff they cannot see, staying in the conversation when it gets hard, loving someone enough to disappoint them in the short term in order to serve them in the long term. Nice is conflict-avoidance dressed up as virtue. Kind is love with a backbone. I have spent over thirty years in this industry, and I can tell you with no hesitation that finance is the most aggressively nice profession on Earth. Everybody is delighted to meet you. Everybody loves the deck. Everybody is very excited about the opportunity. Everybody is circling back. Everybody is connecting you with the right person. Everybody is committed to ESG. Everybody is deeply concerned about climate change. And almost nobody is doing anything that would risk a bonus, a relationship, a mandate, or a seat at a dinner. Because niceness is the lubricant of an industry that cannot afford friction, friction would mean someone telling a client they own fossil fuel exposure dressed up as a sustainability fund. Friction would mean a wealth manager telling a billionaire that the family office is run by people who do not understand the world their grandchildren will inherit. Friction would mean an analyst standing up and saying this entire methodology is performative arithmetic. Friction would be costly. So we have engineered it out. We replaced honesty with politeness. We replaced kindness with comfort. And then we wondered why nothing changes. Read Full Artilce |
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B Corp Asia Summit 2026-June 22-23, 2026 There are currently more than 10,000 B Corp certified companies in more than 100 countries, employing more than 1 million workers. In Asia, there are almost 400 B Corp certified companies, with 40% in Southeast Asia.
Sweden Targets Sustainable Fuel Supply Gap With National Aviation, Maritime Plan
Sweden is preparing a more active state role in the race to scale sustainable aviation and maritime fuels, after a government inquiry delivered a national action plan for domestic production and supply. The report focuses on sustainable aviation fuels and sustainable maritime fuels. It comes as EU rules begin reshaping demand through ReFuelEU Aviation, FuelEU Maritime, and the EU Emissions Trading System. Its central warning is direct. Current EU production capacity may not meet mandated fuel targets from the 2030s onward. Without new capacity, Europe could rely heavily on imports. That would expose airlines, shipping companies, and fuel buyers to price swings and geopolitical supply risks. For maritime transport, the report sees more flexibility in the near term. LNG use, onshore power, and energy efficiency could help operators meet greenhouse gas intensity targets until around 2035. FuelEU Maritime’s pooling mechanism also gives companies room to manage compliance across fleets. But uncertainty remains. The EU’s 1% sub-target for renewable fuels of non-biological origin starts in 2030. The report warns that EU production alone may not meet it. If capacity remains too low, the European Commission may decide not to apply the target. That creates a difficult investment backdrop for e-fuel developers.
Companies Anticipating $900 Billion Losses from Extreme Weather: CDP Report
Companies expect extreme weather events such as flooding and heavy rain to drive nearly $900 billion in financial losses, through impacts ranging from lost revenue and asset impairments to supply chain disruptions, according to a new report released by environmental sustainability reporting platform CDP. While the report indicated a high risk of future losses from extreme weather, CDP also said that its research found that the cost to companies to mitigate environmental risks was substantially lower – nearly 13 times – than their anticipated financial impact. For the report, CDP analyzed data from more than 11,000 companies that disclosed full environmental data through the 2025 CDP corporate questionnaire, as well as 1,005 cities, states and regions. The report found that companies are projecting $898 billion in losses from extreme weather events across short- and long-term horizons, substantially higher than losses to date, with key drivers of anticipated financial impact including lost revenue from reduced production capacity ($326 billion) and asset impairment or early retirement ($218 billion), in addition to losses from sources such as operational disruption, increased costs, higher insurance premiums, and supply chain disruption. By event type, flooding dominated as a source of anticipated losses, at $528 billion, followed by cyclones at $161 billion, and heavy rain at $86 billion. Notably, while the anticipated losses span both short- and long-term time horizons, the study found that companies identified nearly half of the identified extreme weather events as imminent risks, with 48% expected to materialize in the next two years. According to CDP, the cost of mitigating environmental risks is substantially lower than the potential price tag, with its research indicating a median cost of risks per company of $39.4 million, compared to $3.1 million to mitigate them. The report found that are indeed investing to reduce their exposure to extreme weather hazards, with actions primarily focused on measures aimed at limiting direct exposure and vulnerability, such as physical adaptation, or maintaining operations through continuity and emergency response planning. CDP noted, however, that actions coordinated with other actors or addressing shared system dependencies account for a much smaller share of reported responses. The study also found that of the cities, states and regions reporting through CDP, a majority (62%) report that they are already being significantly impacted by extreme weather events, and more than 60% expect these hazards to increase in frequency, intensity, or both, in the future, particularly extreme heat, urban flooding and drought. The also report found that nearly half (46%) of subnational government respondents budgetary constraints limiting their ability to adapt to the effects of climate change, with over 60% having at least one adaptation project for which additional funding is needed, and an indicated adaptation investment gap of at least $34 billion. While environmental risks are anticipated to grow, the study found that only 35% of companies identify extreme weather events as a financially material risk. A key area highlighted by the report as a potentially under-appreciated risk for companies is insurance, with real-economy companies expecting rising insurance premiums to drive only $3.3 billion in future increases, and less than 1% price in expected insurance withdrawal in high-risk areas, which CDP said suggests that “premium increases, coverage restrictions or insurer withdrawal could be significantly larger than companies currently anticipate.” Amir Sokolowski, Global Director of Climate at CDP said:
Click here to access the report. |
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