In a few months, a small British financial think tank will mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of a landmark research report that helped launch the global fossil-fuel-divestment movement. As that celebration takes place, another seminal reportâthis one obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the worldâs largest investment houseâcloses the loop on one of the key arguments of that decade-long fight. It definitively shows that the firms that joined that divestment effort have profited not only morally but also financially.
The original report, from the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative, found something stark: the worldâs fossil-fuel companies had five times more carbon in their reserves than scientists thought we could burn and stay within any sane temperature target. The numbers meant that, if those companies carried out their business plans, the planet would overheat. At the time, I discussed the report with Naomi Klein, who, like me, had been a college student when divestment campaigns helped undercut corporate support for apartheid, and to us this seemed a similar fight; indeed, efforts were already under way at a few scattered places like Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania. In July, 2012, I published an article in Rolling Stone calling for a broader, large-scale campaign, and, over the next few years, helped organize roadshows here and abroad. Today, portfolios and endowments have committed to divest nearly fifteen trillion dollars; the most recent converts, the University of Michigan and Amherst College, made the pledge in the last week....
The much-anticipated market debut was reportedly marred as some of Britainâs biggest investment companies shunned the listing, citing concerns about gig-economy working conditions and the share structure.
Connected personal training platform Tonal is back with a $250 million Series E round of funding, which values the company at $1.6 billion. The new round comes six months after the San Francisco company announced a $110 million Series D round led by L Catterton.
This time, Dragoneer led the round and was joined by Cobalt Capital, L Catterton and Sapphire Ventures, as well as a group of new athlete investors, including Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Maria Sharapova, Mike Tyson and Sue Bird. The new funding brings Tonalâs total funding to more than $450 million since the company was founded in 2015, according to Crunchbase data.
The global health and wellness market was valued at $3.31 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $4.24 billion by 2026. This demand resulted in Tonalâs sales growing more than 8x in 2020. It also partnered with retailer Nordstrom in 40 locations to expand its retail footprint to 60 points of distribution, the company said....
This year started with renewed hope: vaccines to stop a deadly pandemic and increased global cooperation to repair the economic damage. As governments around the world deploy trillions of dollars in stimulus spending we have a unique opportunity to build a better, more inclusive future to tackle an existential threat even bigger than COVID-19: climate change.
With less than 10 years to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals there is one key investment which will get right to the heart of the problems we face, and which can help provide solutions: water. Water is the thread that links the diverse impacts of our health and climate crises. Changing the way that we value this critical resource will unlock its potential to bring about better health, reduced migration, better food security, and more effective climate action.
That is the aim of the Valuing Water Initiative (VWI), launched by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum in 2019. Since then, the initiative has sought to put the UN Valuing Water Principles into practice, and to inspire others to do the same....
