Our monthly round-up of news, ideas and initiatives related to transforming the UK financial system for people and planet, compiled by the Lab’s CEO, Jesse Griffiths.
Climate scorecards
A new scorecard, the seventh in an annual series, tells you how the insurance industry is measuring up on climate.
France has banned responsible investment funds from holding fossil fuel firms in their portfolios.
Could regulatory reform unlock £1.2 trillion of green investment from UK pension funds? Here’s a neat new campaigning video on pension funds and fossil fuels.
Find out who’s financing the biggest fossil fuel bond issuances and check out this new report if you want to find out more about bonds and fossil fuels.
Are asset managers becoming climate change profiteers?
Here’s how banks have pumped over $3 trillion into companies engaged in destroying tropical forests since 2016.
All this may be why oil and gas firms face virtually no extra borrowing costs compared with other companies. If investors want to know more about what not to fund, this recently updated oil and gas industry database might help.
Given this context, why has the government told the powerful Financial Policy Committee it no longer needs to have regard to climate change? In better news, the FCA is cracking down on greenwashing.
Is GFANZ a ‘new paradigm of greenwashing‘?
AI and financial sector risks
Here’s our new report on the big risks from the widespread and increasing adoption of AI in the financial sector, and why we need a precautionary approach to regulation. Meanwhile, the government has announced it has no plans to regulate AI in the short term.
Inequality and oppression
Lloyds of London’s response to a review of its extensive links to the slave trade has been branded ‘reparations washing’.
The richest 1% of the world’s population are responsible for the same carbon emissions as the poorest 66%.
Dirty money – UK clean-up needed
MPs are warning that the City of London is a ‘leading enabler’ of money laundering from central Asia, and will remain a global centre for dirty money without tackling the lack of transparency in UK overseas territories and dependencies. Here’s a brilliant analysis of the good and the bad of the new Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act.
And finally…
Here’s a major report on what to do about Britain’s poor productivity – and a shorter report on the costs of the UK’s high levels of inequality.