Sophia Paliza-Carre

3 weeks ago | marketplace.org | Amy Scott |Sophia Paliza-Carre

One of the most powerful tools in the fight against climate change is the money sitting in investment portfolios. The trillions of dollars of investor capital in these portfolios could fund climate solutions or keep fueling the crisis. But it’s not just companies that can have an impact — individual investors can create change, too. More than half of U.S. households have a dedicated retirement account, like a 401(k) or IRA, and those accounts hold a lot of invisible power.

1 month ago | marketplace.org | Amy Scott |Caitlin Esch |Hayley Hershman |Sophia Paliza-Carre

Can we invest our way out of the climate crisis? That’s the question we started this series with, and in this episode, we try to answer that question. So far, we’ve been talking about the trillions of dollars of investor capital that could fund climate solutions or keep fueling the crisis. But what about our own money? What can we as individuals do to protect our savings from climate risk and not contribute to the problem?

1 month ago | marketplace.org | Amy Scott |Caitlin Esch |Hayley Hershman |Sophia Paliza-Carre

Over the past few years, ESG investing has moved from a mainstream strategy promoted by the biggest asset managers in the world to a polarizing topic. Financial firms have scrubbed the acronym from their websites, dropped out of net-zero initiatives, and stopped advertising their climate efforts. Some have proclaimed ESG dead and buried. But if so, who killed it and why? The pushback to ESG gained steam in 2021, when Texas passed Senate Bill 13, an anti-ESG law.

1 month ago | marketplace.org | Amy Scott |Caitlin Esch |Hayley Hershman |Sophia Paliza-Carre

Can capitalism save us from the climate crisis? In 2020 it seemed like the answer was “possibly.” That year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink shook up the investment world in his annual letter to companies, in which he made climate change a major focus.

1 month ago | marketplace.org | Amy Scott |Caitlin Esch |Hayley Hershman |Sophia Paliza-Carre

In 2020, an investment strategy was all the rage on Wall Street: ESG, or environmental, social and governance investing. It’s a wonky term with a simple premise: Companies that manage the risks and opportunities posed by societal issues like climate change will perform better, especially in the long term. For a moment, it seemed Wall Street could be part of the solution to the climate crisis, driving companies to decarbonize — if not to save the planet, to protect their own bottom lines.