In support of its ambitious target to reduce CO2 emissions the Scottish Government is aiming to have the equivalent of 100% of Scottish electricity consumption generated from renewable sources by 2020. This is, at least in part, motivated by an expectation of subsequent employment growth in low carbon and renewable energy technologies; however there is no official data source to track employment in these areas. This has led to a variety of definitions, methodologies and alternative estimates being produced.
This report looks at fiduciary duty across eight markets (US, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Japan and South Africa) through a series of events, interviews, case studies and a legal review. It finds that fiduciary duties have played, and continue to play, a critical role in ensuring that fiduciaries are loyal to their beneficiaries and carry out their duties in a prudent manner. It concludes that fiduciary duty is not an obstacle to asset owner action on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and it recommends that all of the players in the investment process take specific actions in order for ESG to be implemented on a truly global scale in order to move towards a sustainable financial and economic system.
This paper investigates various roles that finance ministries can assume to promote those policies, regulations and standards which help to create a sustainable financial system. Finance ministries typically interact with the financial sector in many ways, from regulator and supervisory mandate setters to tax authority and sovereign debt issuers. All of these points of leverage empower them to play a key role in making financial systems sustainable.
Sustainability is not often regarded to be part of a finance ministry’s policy mandate. Therefore, this paper looks at cases where finance ministries use their mandates to bring about innovation in the space: Uganda, the Netherlands, the UK, South Africa, France and Germany. In conclusion, under the current mandates of finance ministries, much has already been done to begin creating significant openings that stimulate sustainability in the financial sector.
