Book Description

This book provides empowering examples on how capital can pave the way toward an integrally sustainable future when guided by the equal integration of people, planet, and profit, paired with passion and purpose. The fact that more than 30 percent of all assets under managing are already invested with environmental, governance, and/or social criteria in mind indicates that we are passing the tipping point toward the implementation of both the UN SDG as well as COP21. In the face of the current geo-political crises and climate challenges, the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and of the Paris climate accord (COP21) signed in 2015 by 195 states have become an unavoidable must. Yet, investors, business people, politicians, economists, the civil society, and political leaders are daunted by the task at hand. This is the empowering response of holistically thinking impact investors, business leaders, and economists to the call to action formulated by 32 Club of Rome members in their book “Come on: Capitalism, Short-termism and the Destruction of the Planet,” the report to the Club of Rome published by Springer. The book demonstrates through concrete investment case studies that it is not only possible but indeed financially profitable to merge fiduciary responsibility with in-depth considerations for the people and the planet. It combines contributions from practitioners and researchers in the field of sustainable finance, innovation, entrepreneurship, portfolio engineering, wealth management and transformational leadership. It offers valuable insights into redirecting capital toward integral sustainability across all asset classes while also de-risking assets and offering solutions that ensure the parity of profit, people and planet. The authors not only present new research and frameworks, they also engage in reinventing investment and finance in a practical manner. They show how a new commitment that anchors the UN SDG to the core of every business strategy can make it not only globally competitive but also profitable. The book addresses furthermore the highly important topic of transformational leadership in general with a new entrepreneurial mindset and in the financial industry in particular. The new leader must understand and leverage the antecedents, the cross cutting issues, as well as the behavioural aspects and incentives of sustainable finance. The new leader must understand and have the tools at hand to implement SDG economics. Therefore, this book also addresses concepts that have thus far not been connected to finance nor investment and include frameworks such as vertical development, integral theory, spiral dynamics, conscious capitalism, and their role in de-risking investments, enabling sustainable innovation, reinventing due diligence, but also in horizontal and vertical team development.