Sustainable investing – the defining decades

The 1987 paper Our Common Future, otherwise known as the Brundtland Report, provides the origins of sustainable investing. While ‘responsible investing’ traces its roots back much further, the concept of sustainable development was introduced by the report, commissioned by the United Nations. This defined ‘sustainability’ as “development that meets the needs for the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs”. It was upon these principles that the Global Sustainable Equity team began investing four years later.

For the purposes of our look back, we group the drivers of development into three sections:

1. Science – transforming the outlook for life expectancy

As the standard of living improved across much of the world, so did global life expectancy. By 2011, people on average were expected to live to the age of 70 and today, the World Health Organization expects that this number has risen to 73.⁴ 2011 was also the year that two thirds of the population had access to safe drinking water. Last year, that figure rose to three quarters.

2. Population growth – coming at a cost

Scientific advances contributed to the make-up of the global population, which has grown and urbanised rapidly. By 2011, the population reached seven billion – a billion increase on 12 years prior – and the human impact on the environment had become stark. Today, the global population stands at 7.8 billion, and the effects are ever more apparent. Resource use, waste production and environmental damage have been accelerated by population growth and worsened by consumer habits in a linear economic (take-make-dispose) model.

We believe the next step in the planet’s sustainability journey is to decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources by operating through a circular economic model.

Meanwhile, atmospheric CO_2, which contributes to the warming of the planet, has continued to climb. In May 2013, the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii recorded a daily mean CO₂ concentration of 400 parts per million for the first time since measurement began in 1958.⁹ Today that number has risen to 412.97 parts per million. Global warming has caused the polar ice caps to melt at an alarming rate and arctic ice thickness has decreased by 40% since the late 1970’s.¹⁰ As a result, extreme weather events – wildfires, hurricanes and flooding – have become more prevalent across the globe.

The pace and intensity of human’s impact on the planet are clear. As the global population has grown, so too has consumption of the Earth’s finite natural resources. It is important to note that the utilisation of resources is not equal among individuals with millions still living below the poverty line, yet the cumulative effect is meaningful, and devastating. This poses the key question that the world is currently grappling with – are we prepared to accept the potentially uncomfortable trade off and cost of moving from an unsustainable linear economic model to a circular economy based around renewable, electric and digital drivers?

3. Innovation – potential solutions

In 1989, the World Wide Web was created. Little did English scientist and inventor Tim Berners-Lee know at the time, but the Web, or Internet, would change the social landscape forever. Free global communication would soon become prolific and a key driver of social and commercial evolution. Since the late ’90s, individuals, businesses and governments have utilised the Internet to transform communication practices, and in some instances, remove communication barriers altogether.

Batteries are another important component of sustainability and is an area that has seen a huge inflection in innovation over the past decade. To achieve higher penetration of renewable energy, it must be possible to capture, store and use energy when needed. Advances in battery technology have therefore been key to the movement away from fossil fuel dependence.

Recently, the 2015 Paris Climate Accord has set challenging targets to limit global warming. The world’s most industrial economies have responded by establishing policies to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The UK, US and EU have targeted carbon neutrality by 2050, while China aims to achieve the same goal by 2060. The International Energy Agency’s 2021 Roadmap to Net Zero outlines the scale, pace and political commitment required to achieve a net zero energy system which includes the need to invest at least US$4 trillion annually into clean energy technology by 2030. Today, countries have committed a huge amount of capital to create the conditions for a globally synchronised investment boom into clean technologies.

The path to a circular economy

As set out 34 years ago in the Brundtland Report, sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs. Over the past three decades there has been huge progress in sustainability, yet significant challenges remain and, as things stand, we remain on a destructive path with an economic model that is still linear and fossil fuel driven.

Continue

On the positive side, science and technology have improved, and so has our understanding of what is needed to make the planet sustainable. We believe the next step in the planet’s sustainability journey is to decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources by operating through a circular economic model. In this model, the future will be shaped by renewable, electric and digital forces. But getting to this point will take concerted policy action at the highest level and a commitment in the face of difficult choices.

For 30 years, we have viewed the world through a lens of sustainability. We believe the world can make the necessary changes and that innovation holds the key to overcoming the obstacles ahead.  By continuing to evolve and commit to the technologies already in place we believe it is possible, and essential, to switch to the circular economic model.