The Responsible Investor Podcast

Asset managers are under pressure to respond to a wide range of client demands on sustainability issues, from stewardship to decarbonisation, while grappling with a rapidly changing policy landscape.

In this episode of The Responsible Investor Podcast, Wendy Cromwell, who heads up sustainable investment at Wellington Management, tells Elza Holmstedt Pell how the US giant navigates this, and how conversations with asset owners are evolving.

This wide-ranging interview digs into engagement expectations, US policy changes, addressing physical climate risks, and the intersection between sustainability and key global investment themes.

In recent years, investors have increasingly been trying to work out how to best address deforestation in their portfolios. 

How has action evolved over the years? What has been the impact of changes in the regulatory environment, in particular the EU’s deforestation regulation? And to what extent, is it currently possible to set deforestation-free portfolio targets? 

Responsible Investor’s nature reporter Gina Gambetta sits down with Graham Stock, senior sovereign strategist, emerging markets at BlueBay Asset Management, to dig into these topics. 

Stock is also the co-chair of the Investor Policy Dialogue on Deforestation (IPDD). Launched in 2020, the initiative involves investors engaging with policymakers in Brazil, Indonesia, the UK, US and Europe. 

He gives behind-the-scenes insight into how the IPDD came into being, what the experience has been like so far, and how he sees it continuing to evolve going forward.

Investors are urgently seeking to understand how their portfolios will be affected by physical climate risks in the wake of more frequent extreme weather and regulatory changes.

Climate risk data, and the related topic of adaptation and resilience, has also been a key focus of Responsible Investor's editorial content this year. We most recently published deep dives on both physical risk data and risk management as part of our COP30 Report.

In this episode, Khalid Azizuddin speaks to Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions at the asset management arm of Legal & General, about the challenges of working with data on physical climate risk.

Just over two years ago, the European Commission launched the first step in the long road to reform of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

On 20 November, the Commission's proposed amendments to the law were released. These will introduce concrete product categories and do away with both entity-level PAI reporting and the definition of "sustainable investment".

In this episode, Dominic Webb talks to Anne Schoemaker, head of regulatory and investment selection solutions at Morningstar Sustainalytics, and Dennis Baas, head of sustainability strategists at Allianz Global Investors, about the review, how it may affect the market and the next steps for SFDR.

With 2050 on the horizon and a challenging political and economic environment for companies looking to hit net zero, engagement on climate change is more important than ever.

As part of its new climate and investors focus, Responsible Investor has published a series of articles looking at the future of climate engagement ranging from how climate collaborations are evolving to engagement with hard to abate sectors and how investors are responding to an increasingly challenging environment.

In this episode, senior reporters Dominic Webb and Gina Gambetta discuss their findings and how investors across the world are evolving their approaches to climate stewardship.