Library | ESG issues
Systemic Risk Management
Systemic risk refers to the possibility that an event at the company level could trigger severe instability or collapse in an entire industry or economy. It extends beyond individual failures, encompassing large-scale threats such as climate change, natural disasters, inflation, geopolitical crises, and pandemics. Effective systemic risk management requires proactive monitoring, regulatory safeguards, and resilience strategies to mitigate risks and ensure financial stability in an increasingly complex and uncertain global landscape.
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Investing to reconnect financial value with people, nature and the real economy: An iterative blueprint for capital markets actors, policymakers and regulators
This report outlines a blueprint for reforming capital markets to better reflect human, social and natural capital. It proposes changes to fiduciary duty, financial analysis and policy frameworks to reduce systemic risks and align investment practices with long-term economic, environmental and social outcomes.
Horizon Scanning: Risk and regulation in the GCC
This report outlines 2026 financial crime and regulatory risks in the GCC, focusing on AI-enabled fraud, digital assets, cybercrime, beneficial ownership, supply chains, sanctions, and tougher AML/CFT oversight linked to upcoming FATF evaluations and recent legal reforms in the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Toxic finance: The banks and investors funding the expansion of petrochemicals in the US
This report argues that banks and investors are enabling US petrochemical expansion despite rising market, legal, climate and public health risks, identifying major financiers and investors while warning that continued support may expose them to financial, reputational and regulatory harm.
Horizon scanning: Financial crime risks and regulation in the UK
This report outlines emerging UK financial crime risks for 2026, highlighting AI-enabled fraud, cyber-enabled crime, sanctions evasion, and organised networks. It examines evolving regulatory expectations, stricter enforcement, and expanded oversight, emphasising the need for proactive risk management, robust controls, and enhanced compliance frameworks.
Mind the gap: An insurance climate vulnerability assessment
APRA assesses Australia’s home insurance protection gap under climate scenarios, finding affordability pressures may increase uninsured households from one in seven to one in four by 2050. Rising weather risks and economic factors drive premiums, widening financial system risks, particularly in regional areas, with implications for households, insurers and banks.
Guidance for applying absolute environmental sustainability assessment on activities at different scales (BETA version)
Provides beta guidance for applying Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment, comparing activities’ environmental burdens against planetary boundaries. It outlines a three-phase, nine-step framework, supported by case studies (buildings, cement, EU consumption), and aligns with existing accounting standards while addressing methodological gaps in allocating environmental limits.
Heightened human rights due diligence
UNDP’s training guide explains heightened human rights due diligence for companies in conflict-affected contexts, outlining frameworks, legal expectations and practical steps to assess, mitigate and remedy impacts on human rights and conflict, supported by case studies and tools to guide implementation.
Sustainable Finance Roundup March 2026: Markets, Climate Risk, and the Transition in Practice
This month’s sustainability roundup captures a shift from framework development to real-world application, where climate and nature risks are increasingly embedded across financial systems, legal accountability, and decision-making. It highlights how intensifying physical climate signals, evolving disclosures, and maturing litigation are converging with insights on sovereign risk, energy systems, and corporate strategy. Together, these developments show how sustainability is moving beyond principle—being tested, priced, and enforced across markets, regulation, and the real economy.
Private doubts, collective conformity: the Power and fragility of climate narratives
This article examines why current climate frameworks persist despite widespread professional skepticism, highlighting institutional incentives and “preference falsification” as key drivers. It calls for more open, cross-sector dialogue focused on diagnosing real problems and unlocking practical, system-level solutions.
Responsible exit principles for oil and gas companies
Sets out voluntary principles for responsible oil and gas asset exits, focusing on decommissioning, buyer due diligence, transparency and stakeholder engagement to reduce climate, financial, legal and social risks from asset transfers and support an orderly transition.
Life, Climate Volatility, and What Comes After the Final No: Part 3—AFTER THE FINAL NO.
This final article in a three-part series explores how to navigate resistance to systemic change. Drawing on personal experience, it outlines a framework for resilience—building alliances, embracing interdisciplinary thinking, and storytelling—empowering leaders to persist through setbacks and turn persistent “no” into transformative, collective “yes.”
Life, Climate Volatility, and What Comes After the Final No: Part 2—CLIMATE VOLATILITY
This second article in a three-part series reframes climate change as volatility rather than warming. Drawing on finance and systems thinking, it explores how risk pricing, redesigned economic incentives, and nature-based solutions can build resilience, urging leaders to manage climate as the ultimate systemic risk.
Life, Climate Volatility, and What Comes After the Final No: Part 1 - LIFE
Written by Ken Coulson, a former global finance executive turned sustainability strategist, this first article in a three-part series explores humanity’s origins as a cosmic accident. It reframes Earth’s natural systems as a fragile inheritance under threat, urging a shift from extraction to stewardship through a unifying cosmic perspective on climate, responsibility, and systemic change.
Managing risks created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Enhanced due diligence and advanced know your-customer policies
The report advises firms to strengthen due diligence and advanced know-your-customer checks to prevent sanctions evasion and re-exports supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. It highlights front-company red flags, recommends stronger internal controls and information-sharing, and uses case studies to show how diversion risks can be detected.
Climate-nature scenario development for financial risk assessment
This report develops integrated climate-nature scenarios for financial risk assessment, showing that combined climate and nature policies provide a fuller view of agricultural, biodiversity and ecosystem-service risks than separate approaches, with implications for central banks, supervisors and future stress-testing frameworks.
You Built This
This article argues that modern investment strategies fuel economic extraction while often underperforming simpler alternatives. It calls on investors to realign portfolios with productive, community-oriented investments that generate real economic and social value.