Author: Robert Rubinstein

The Global Voice of ESG & Impact Investing

New York, I Barely Recognize You And I Mean That as the Highest Compliment

Audio Version of Text

I left New York in 1974.

I was a kid who grew up in the city's noise and grit, who knew the subway maps by heart, who understood that New York was magnificent and brutal in equal measure. When I left, I carried it with me — the energy, the ambition, the feeling that anything was possible — but I also left behind a city that was struggling. Crime was rising. The streets felt harder. The spirit was fraying.

For fifty years, I have watched New York from a distance, with the particular ache of someone who loves a place they can no longer call home.

Something has shifted.

I have spent my career in the impact space — working at the intersection of capital, conscience, and human dignity. I believe, fundamentally, that systems can change. That cities, companies, and communities can be redesigned around people rather than against them. But belief is easy. Evidence is harder to come by. Which is why what is happening in New York right now feels so meaningful to me, not just as a former New Yorker, but as someone who has staked a professional life on the idea that things can actually get better.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani stepped into office carrying something rare in modern politics: a genuine vision for what a city owes its people. Not a vision built on fear, or on the politics of division, but on the radical — and I use that word deliberately — notion that a great city should work for everyone who lives in it. The results speak for themselves. Crime is down. Not marginally, not statistically, but in the lived experience of the people on those streets. New Yorkers are friendlier. The tension that used to crackle in the air, that low-grade hostility that was just part of the deal when you lived there — it's lifting. I hear it from people who still live there. I see it in the city when I visit.

This is what happens when leadership takes seriously the idea that safety and justice are not opposites. That investing in people — in housing, in mental health, in dignity — is not soft. It is the most practical thing you can do for a city.

And then there are the Knicks.

I know how this sounds. A basketball team as a measure of urban renaissance? But if you grew up in New York, you understand. The Knicks are not just a franchise. They are a mirror. When the city suffers, so do they. When the city rises, something happens in the Garden that you cannot quite explain to someone who didn't grow up feeling it in their chest.

This Knicks team has done something I did not think I would live to see: they have made New York believe again. Not in a narrow, sports-fan way, but in a deeper sense. They play with joy. They play for each other. They play with a generosity of spirit — sharing the ball, celebrating one another, refusing the ego-driven isolation that has sunk so many talented teams — that feels almost like a rebuke to everything broken about modern culture.

When I watch the Garden erupt, when I see 20,000 New Yorkers completely united in something, I feel something loosen in my chest. That is a city remembering itself. That is people choosing, for a few hours at least, to be part of something larger than themselves.

That matters. I would argue, in fact, that it matters enormously.

Here is what I have learned from decades in the impact space: culture and policy are not separate forces. They are in constant conversation. A mayor who governs with humanity changes the way citizens relate to one another. A basketball team that plays with joy and solidarity changes the way a city sees itself. These things are connected. Hope is contagious. Dignity is contagious. When you give people reasons to feel proud of where they live and who they are, the city reflects it back.

New York is proof of something I care deeply about: that large cities — dense, complicated, beautifully messy cities — can be places where people don't just survive alongside each other, but actually thrive together. That the anonymity of urban life doesn't have to mean coldness. That a city of eight million can have a soul.

I grew up believing New York was the greatest city in the world. I left before I could fully understand why I believed that, or whether it was even true. Now, fifty years later, watching from a distance, I think I finally understand.

It was never the skyline. It was never the ambition, or the noise, or the mythology.

It was always the people. And right now, the people are shining.

Let's go Knicks. And thank you, New York, for giving the rest of us something to hope for.

Robert Rubinstein is the founder of TBLI Group, a pioneering force in impact investing and sustainable finance. He has spent over three decades working to align capital with human dignity and ecological health.

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B Corp Asia Summit 2026-June 22-23, 2026

I'm excited to share that I'll be chairing this session-Where Capital Is Moving Now — Impact Investment & Finance Forum— and I can’t wait to be in the room with leaders from across Asia who are pushing this conversation forward.  B Corp Asia Summit 2026, taking place in Kuala Lumpur on 22–23 June! 

If you’re attending, come say hi. If you’re not yet registered, click the link below. Seats are limited.
https://bcorp-asia2026.bcorpsea.org/ 

Use this promo code: TBLI during registration and enjoy a special discount.

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Photograph: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

Airline industry chiefs say 2050 net zero goal now unlikely

Iata boss Willie Walsh blames fuel suppliers, governments and aircraft makers, saying new ‘realistic timeline’ now needed

Air fare rises ‘inevitable’ as airlines face extra $100bn jet fuel bill

The aviation industry’s landmark pledges to be net zero by 2050 will probably not now be achieved, airline leaders have admitted.

The collective goal to eliminate net carbon emissions was declared by global airlines only five years ago in 2021, with similar pledges made by national aviation industry leaders and governments, including in the UK, in 2020.

However, Willie Walsh, the director general of global airlines body Iata, said “hope was fading fast” and a new “realistic timeline” should be established.

Walsh – who was the chief executive of British Airways owner IAG until September 2020 – said fuel suppliers, governments and aircraft manufacturers were largely to blame for the likely failure to hit the target.

More than half of the planned decarbonisation of aviation was dependent on the development of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), with much of the rest reliant on a global emissions trading programme, Corsia, established under the aegis of the UN and its aviation body ICAO.

In a speech to delegates at the annual Iata summit in Rio de Janeiro, Walsh said that Corsia was being “undermined” by government inaction, while annual production of SAF would only reach 2.4m tonnes, or 0.8% of airline fuel needs, this year. “The goal is 65% or 500m tonnes by 2050. The gap is wide and not closing fast enough,” he said.

He said that governments had, through ICAO, targeted a 5% emission reduction by 2030 by using SAF. However, he cautioned: “To be blunt, there is no path to meet that outcome.”

He added: “There is still hope for 2050 – but that’s fading fast … We need an urgent dialogue to determine a realistic timeline given the current state of affairs.”

While Walsh said that 2050 might not be ruled out, “the more likely outcome, however, is a new timeline that hits a sweet spot – realistic within the broader context of the global energy transition and sufficiently near-term to meet the urgencies of climate change and energy security.”

Walsh told the Guardian later that airlines were “continuing to do everything we said we would do, but we can’t achieve net zero in 2050 on our own”. He said they were “very disappointed” with manufacturers delaying the delivery of new efficient aircraft and “we’ve not seen reform of air traffic management systems around the world, which would significantly reduce our gross emissions.

“And we’re disappointed that fuel companies who committed to making the fuel available to us are not delivering on the promises that they’ve made.“

Read full article
 

UK Proposes Dropping TCFD-Based Climate Reporting for Investment Products

 Mark Segal 

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s conduct regulator for financial services firms and financial markets, announced a new proposal to drop requirements for financial firms to publish TCFD-based climate disclosures for investment products, replacing them with simplified reporting on climate risks for retail investors, and on-demand emissions data for institutional clients.

The new proposals form part of the FCA’s efforts to streamline sustainability reporting requirements for asset managers and asset owners. The regulator estimated that the new rules would save investment firms approximately £20 million ($USD27 million) per year.

The new proposal follows a review carried out by the FCA of the results of climate reporting rules put in place by the regulator in 2021, which required asset managers, life insurers and FCA-regulated pension providers to disclose climate-related information in line with the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. Under the current rules, firms are required to annually publish entity-level reports, setting out how the firm takes climate risks and opportunities into account when managing or administering investments, and product-level reports including carbon metrics and climate scenario analysis.

The review found several positive impacts from the implementation of its climate reporting rules, particularly in the area of risk management, with firms indicating that the requirements have helped them to consider climate change as a material risk and to build their capabilities, as well as to help them to integrate climate risks and opportunities into their strategies. The review also found that the rules have also improved transparency with clients on how firms take climate risks into account when managing or administering their assets.

The review also found, however, that while retail investors remain interested in the impact of climate risks on their investments, the level of detail required under the TCFD recommendations was too complex, resulting in low engagement with the TCFD-based product reports. For institutional investors, the review indicated that they need some data within the TCFD-based product reports, they typically engage directly with the firms to meet their specific data needs, rather than referencing the public reports.

Under the new proposal, the FCA would remove TCFD product reporting requirements, introducing in their place more targeted, and more outcomes-based rules. For retail investors, firms would be required to periodically consider whether climate risks and opportunities could be materially relevant to the financial performance or return of the product, and to disclose these in communications that provide general information on risk and financial returns.

For institutional clients, the FCA’s new proposal would require firms to provide data on scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, at a minimum, when requested by clients to satisfy their climate disclosure obligations, with a limit of one request per product per year.

Michelle Beck, director of wholesale buy-side at the FCA, said:

“As part of being a smarter, more proportionate regulator, we’re cutting complexity in our rules for asset managers, while keeping the focus on clear, useful information for investors. These proposals will make it easier for firms to communicate with their customers in ways that genuinely inform and engage them.”

The FCA said that it has opened a consultation on the new proposals, which will remain open until July 13, 2026.

Click here to access the consultation and new proposed rules.

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The Super El Niño Is Coming. What Does That Mean for Crops?

by ESG News Editorial Team 
Author: Will Kletter, COO ClimateAi

In 2023/24, El Niño wiped 14% off the global cocoa supply. Prices hit record highs. Procurement teams scrambled. And while that was a strong El Niño, the fifth strongest on record, it was not a Super El Niño.

ClimateAI’s latest El Niño outlook now assigns greater than 90% odds for El Niño conditions to start in 2026. Models are increasingly converging on a Super El Niño event, roughly six times the warming needed to qualify as an El Niño event.

Our models are already showing early signs of how this super El Niño could bring another supply shock to cocoa supply chains. With an 87% likelihood of high heat damage to disruption yields in the world’s third-largest producer, Indonesia, and a 71% likelihood of medium heat-damage risk in Ghana, the second-largest. 

For most other crops, the 2026/27 growing season hasn’t started yet, but the signals are already there. For agricultural buyers, producers, and companies across the agricultural value chain, the question isn’t whether this will affect your sourcing. It’s whether you can act on it in time to mitigate losses.

What Makes 2026 Different from Other El Niños

A typical El Niño is defined by a 0.5°C warming of Pacific surface temperatures. What’s coming in 2026 could exceed 3.0°C. These types of temperature swings are the difference between a difficult growing season and global supply shocks and local famines. 

The last Super El Niño in 2015, for example, led to corn and bean yield losses exceeding 90% in parts of Central America and contributed to the worst drought Ethiopia had seen in decades. 

Many of the indicators used to monitor El Niño intensity are already flashing warning signs that this could be even worse. Subsurface Pacific temperatures have risen to +8°C at depths of 100–150 meters, surpassing levels observed at the same stage in the 1997 and 2015 Super El Niño events. 

Another unusual, positive aspect of this El Niño is the amount of lead time agricultural supply chains still have to prepare. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can increase forecastability in certain areas where the relationships between the oceanic variables described above and outcomes on land are well known. As a result, ClimateAi’s models and others show a high degree of certainty about the Super El Niño threshold months inadvance. In practical terms, this means companies have unusually high confidence unusually early, allowing them to make contingency plans and adapt.

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