Buzz: Transfer to editor

Discussion paper on how climate risk is interpreted, governed and acted upon by UK pension schemes.

Works through three climate pathways as governance stress-tests and traces their distinct implications for DB, DC, CDC and LGPS arrangements - including:

• covenant strength
• endgame planning
• insurance-market resilience and
• member outcomes.

The report also examines fiduciary duty, noting trustees must weigh systemic climate risk within existing legal duties, and makes a business case for pension-scheme climate policy advocacy.

Annual assessment of the global green economy drawing on green-revenues data across more than 21,000 listed companies.

Green revenues grew 5.3% in 2025 - the fastest pace since 2022 - with expansion across 75% of the 133 green segments tracked, driven by accelerating electrification, AI-related electricity demand, energy-efficiency pressures and clean transport growth.

Considered as a standalone industry, the green economy would now be the world's third largest, surpassing healthcare

Analysis of physical climate risk to Iberian hydropower, matching 36 years of Spanish and Portuguese reservoir data to the six largest operators — roughly 8.3 GW of capacity-weighted generation across 48 reservoirs.

In the 44 driest months on record, Iberdrola's fleet held around 74% of capacity while Naturgy's sat below 40%: a 34-point dispersion in drought resilience between two investment-grade utilities that the authors argue investors should price, rather than applying a blanket climate discount.

The piece also identifies a statistically robust 1.9-percentage-point-per-decade storage decline at Endesa (material to parent Enel) and shows pumped-storage design measurably improves resilience versus conventional reservoirs.

Quantifies how physical climate risk is flowing through to corporate financial performance.

Climate risk is showing up as real business cost

Modeled results for large U.S. companies indicate that climate impacts can translate into meaningful, recurring losses from both physical damage and business interruption, turning disruption into an ongoing cost of operating, not just a rare shock.

Extreme weather can create outsized, correlated downside

When severe events hit, losses can scale quickly across multiple companies at once. In a modeled 1-in-100-year scenario, impacts on major U.S. firms rise sharply, highlighting how tail risk can become a portfolio-wide problem rather than a single-asset issue.

Markets respond quickly to disclosed disruption

Companies tend to see a near-term stock decline (around 3%) following the disclosure of a weather-related disaster, reinforcing the view that markets increasingly treat physical climate disruption as financially material.

Analysing 866 US sectoral employment series, LOIM finds around three-quarters show a statistically significant trend change since ChatGPT's launch in late 2022.

• Most negative (warehousing, temporary help, business support, computer systems design)
• ~20% positive (nursing and residential care, social assistance, passenger transport, infrastructure).

The authors conclude AI is not yet eliminating jobs at the macro level but is already redistributing where employment growth occurs, consistent with classic structural-change theory. 

The Banking on Climate Chaos coalition has published its 2026 Fossil Fuel Finance Report, the seventeenth edition of the annual league table of bank fossil-fuel financing.

The world's 65 largest banks committed USD 906 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2025 — up around 8% year-on-year — taking the total since the Paris Agreement to USD 8.7 trillion, with financing for fossil-fuel expansion jumping 27% to USD 508 billion.

A new 'BOCC+' dataset extends coverage to roughly 2,000 banks, and the authors find six financial centres account for 87% of all fossil financing.

Key takeaways

• Even as numerous top banks pull back, nearly two-thirds of the world’s largest 65 banks continue to fuel a fragile and unstable fossil energy system.
• Bank financing for fossil fuel expansion jumped over 27% in a single year.
• “Dirty Dozen” banks now provide more than a third of global fossil finance.
• Top banks are concentrating their fossil financing in fewer, more leveraged fossil fuel borrowers.
• Six financial centers hold the keys to phasing out fossil fuel financing.

Frames AI as both a sustainability risk and opportunity for long-term investors

• Risk channels include a rapidly growing carbon and water footprint, plus labour-market and social-cohesion disruption
• Opportunities include its potential to compound efficiency gains, accelerate clean-technology discovery and scale proven solutions at near-zero marginal cost.

The authors conclude that AI should be treated as a 'sustainability transition variable', integrated into portfolio construction, engagement priorities and risk-assessment frameworks.

Key takeaways

• "Critical minerals are essential to the global energy transition. However, mining activities can pose significant sustainability and financial risks for investors.
• An assessment based on the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) standard using ISS STOXX Corporate Rating indicators shows that companies have strong policy adoption but weak implementation. While most companies have human rights, labour, and environmental policies, fewer demonstrate robust human rights due diligence, credible targets, or consistent operational practices.
• A nature impact and dependency assessment on a mining operator's universe based in Asia indicated that mining operators depended heavily on water-related ecosystem services. They simultaneously drive negative environmental impacts related to land-use change, pollution, and climate change.
• The physical climate risks to mining assets are set to intensify under high-emissions scenarios. According to ISS STOXX models, water-stress and heatwave exposure across Asian mine assets will increase significantly over the next 15–30 years, threatening operational continuity and cost structures.
• Engagement remains an investor tool to assess and manage portfolio companies' risks related to pollution, Indigenous rights, community consultation, and climate-related governance.
• In addition, investors can enhance portfolio resilience by tilting towards issuers with a stronger sustainability profile (leaders), while engaging with industry laggards to close implementation gaps. Investors can also start to embed nature- and climate-risk analytics in investment processes."

Contents

• Critical minerals in Asia's energy transition: Demand, risks, and supply chain dynamics
• Critical minerals mining in Asia: An IRMA-aligned sustainability assessment
• Nature risks in critical minerals mining: Dependencies and Impacts
• Geospatial data–climate risk exposure assessmentInvestor engagement on critical minerals mining: Case Studies

The First Sentier MUFG Sustainable Investment Institute seeks to commission a comprehensive research report on sustainability-related issues in data centres, focusing on financial materiality, sustainability-related risks, and systemic implications for investors.

The report will aim to quantify financial materiality, assess systemic risks and their potential impact on valuations, and provide investment insights across asset classes including engagement guidance. Case studies will be used to demonstrate risks and opportunities including sustainability impacts on production timelines, capex, and revenue. Expected sources include literature (industry reports, media, NGOs, international organisations, academic articles), datasets and industry sources.

Deliverable will include a completed report comprising research outcomes, data, visuals and engagement toolkit.

Proposed timelines:

• This RFP is issued on 29.06.2026
• Any questions or feedback regarding the brief should be submitted by 6.07.2026
• Answers to any questions will be provided by 8.07.2026
• Proposal should be submitted to the Institute by 10.07.2026 together with availability for a 1 hour call to discuss the proposals in the week of 13.07.2026
• Target for notifying the successful tenderer by 17.07.2026

Published: 4 March 2026

Summary: Ericsson's Annual Report incorporates a CSRD/ESRS-aligned Sustainability Statement covering climate strategy, responsible AI, supply-chain management, human rights and circularity.

Published: April 2026

Summary: One of the largest global data-centre REITs. The report focuses on low-carbon data centres, operational efficiency, renewable energy sourcing, customer decarbonisation and resilient digital infrastructure. There is growing discussion of how AI demand is influencing facility design and energy management.

Published: May 2026

Summary: The report covers renewable electricity procurement, energy efficiency, cooling technologies, water stewardship and AI-ready digital infrastructure. It also discusses supporting hyperscale AI workloads while pursuing science-based climate targets.

Nobody really knows how fast AI will develop and what the economic impact will be. It sometimes feels like you ask five people, and you get six different answers. And you don’t even have to ask any economist to get that confused. What to do then to get more clarity?

A team of researchers around Ezra Karger from the Federal Reserve thought, why not ask:

• 69 economists,
• 27 AI industry specialists,
• 25 AI policy experts,
• 38 superforecasters, and
• 401 members of the general public?

They asked all of them the same question and compared the answers.

I mean, how bad can it be?

My latest piece for Reuters is out this morning [June 18th] and I focus on what I think the true future of AI is. Not large language models running in data centres but small language models running on local desktop computers or even mobile devices.

Developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Planetary Boundaries framework identifies nine Earth system processes that define a “safe operating space” for humanity. Existing research highlights that seven of the nine boundaries have already been breached, signalling escalating risks of irreversible environmental change.  

These developments have considerable significance for businesses and investors: over $58 trillion of global economic value (more than half of global GDP) depends on nature, making ecosystem degradation a systemic financial risk rather than a purely environmental issue.