Highlights from the Institute’s research exchange with Columbia Business School

Investors want to see a link between challenges that address their biggest problems in sustainable investing and work coming out of the academy.

No one wants a do-over, but the vast majority believes financial institutions will miss their near-term targets: Takeaways from our Climate Week NYC roundtable

How realistic is it for institutional investors to uphold their climate commitments to finance decarbonization, is misalignment with climate goals equivalent to exposure to transition risk, and would convergence between the hodgepodge of frameworks and approaches accelerate financing the transition to a low-carbon economy?

Ahead of Climate Week NYC: The low-carbon transition by the numbers

Climate Week NYC is coming up! Here is your cheat sheet of go-to stats for the constructive (and provocative) conversations ahead.

Transition finance needs to reach beyond the boundaries of Europe

Capital is a prerequisite for decarbonizing our economy and so is policy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the European Union, where policy and capital are together driving progress.

Tackling AMR through capital markets: Top takeaways from the Institute’s roundtable

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) fueled by indiscriminate use of antibiotics represents among the greatest threats to global public health. How can investors address the risks and opportunities that AMR presents?

How one asset manager uses the NZIF to develop and set climate targets

The French asset manager Comgest has selected the Net Zero Investment Framework (NZIF) to inform development of its climate targets.

An investor’s guide to antimicrobial resistance

The overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobials poses a growing threat to lives and livelihoods in every region while presenting strategic opportunities for risk-minded investors, according to a new guide published by the MSCI Sustainability Institute in collaboration with the FAIRR initiative and the Access to Medicine Foundation.

What’s on your summer reading list?

Here are eight don’t-miss pieces that range from the frontiers of sustainable finance and transformative thinking to climate progress in Asia and more. Enjoy them wherever your downtime may take you.

Transition-finance indicators show companies’ misalignment with climate goals

There are multiple ways to measure companies’ alignment with global climate goals. No matter how you look at it though, the world’s listed companies remain largely off track.

Reality Checking Sustainable Finance: Top takeaways from our live event

Leaders from finance, academia and business untangled the latest data on sustainability and performance, explored divergence in ESG ratings, examined the role of diversity in creating value, and addressed misconceptions that have set sustainable investing up for self-reflection.

Bringing derivatives to climate reporting: Top takeaways from the Institute’s roundtable

Despite their central role in portfolio and risk management, accounting for the carbon footprint of derivatives has proved to be a challenge for investors and other capital-markets participants.

Climate change dominates investors’ outlook, Stanford-MSCI Sustainability Institute survey finds

The impacts of a warming world are likely to impact investments in the medium term, say the world's largest owners and managers of assets

These 10 charts show how the world’s biggest investors are integrating sustainability into their decision-making

Unavoidable opportunity: How to make climate adaptation and resilience investable

How might investors identify companies that are developing or delivering products and services designed to help society withstand the impacts of a warming planet?

Methodology: Developing an investible universe of climate adaptation and resilience companies

Identifying products and services that contribute to adaptation and resilience comes with challenges, as evidenced by the gap between investment (and action) to reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and investment in technologies for adaptation

Whither went Scope 3?

Scope 3 emissions aside, investors stand to have much more information about financially relevant climate risks thanks to the SEC’s ruling.

17 years of MSCI ESG Ratings and long-term corporate performance

In the latest update to our long-running research on the relationship between MSCI ESG ratings and corporate performance, we find that top MSCI ESG-rated companies have consistently outperformed their lower-rated peers due chiefly to better earnings fundamentals.

Generating lift for low-carbon aviation

The push to decarbonize matters for an industry that contributes about 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually.

US firms fall further behind global peers on climate disclosure

U.S.-listed companies lag their peers globally in disclosing their financially relevant climate risks.

Men on boards

Our analysis shows that on their current trajectory, women are projected to hold 30% of board seats in 2026 and reach 50% by 2040

Is ‘rational sustainability’ the new ESG?

Could jettisoning the acronym 'ESG' in favor of a different term hold the potential to get back to basics on the practice of creating long-term value

Supporting a new generation of climate-finance scholars

Aligning the trillions of dollars of capital that the transition to a clean-energy economy will demand is generating a youth movement in the field of sustainable finance.

All finance is sustainable finance

Sustainability needs to be a core part of the MBA curriculum if business education is to keep pace with a changing world

Accelerating climate progress in the largest economies

Leaders from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the White House, and business and finance share insights for clearing barriers that get in the way of climate action.

Interactive: Are countries on track to meet their climate goals?

Our interactive graphic illustrates two decisions that confront investors and policymakers who aim to assess a country’s contribution to global warming.

Is 1.6°C the new 1.5°C?

The MSCI Sustainability Institute and its collaborators are pursuing initiatives to drive the immediacy of climate action across capital markets

Can climate resilience be an attractive investment?

The world is getting hotter, but investor focus on eliminating carbon emissions has not been matched by attention to investments in improving our resilience to the physical risks of climate change.

When does sustainability drive value?

The Institute seeks to highlight the most practitioner-relevant academic research into how sustainability factors impact the value of financial assets

Decarbonization appears to be getting harder for listed companies

This interactive chart offers a look at the pace of carbon emissions reductions by G20 countries and companies.

Simulating an orderly phaseout of coal power in the Asia-Pacific region

Our analysis shows the most orderly pathway for phasing out coal power in 15 regional markets, including mainland China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Australia.

Concrete steps for speeding the decarbonization of cement

The cement industry has the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from production by roughly 40% by 2030, according to analysis by Galvanize Climate Solutions and the MSCI Sustainability Institute

Accessing climate data and practitioner understanding

The Institute will equip academic and policy researchers with sustainability data, metrics and models that investors can use to inform decision-making.