Our 7th edition of the TOMORROW publication focuses on responsible investing where we explore themes that we believe are integral to attaining sustainable long term growth, and long term systemic risks and opportunities that will impact our industry. It comprises a series of essays by highly respected local and global thought leaders and key role players including asset owners, consultants, asset managers, economists, advocacy groups, and government representatives, some of which you’ll hear from in this podcast.
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Our 7th edition of the TOMORROW publication focuses on responsible investing where we explore themes that we believe are integral to attaining sustainable long term growth, and long term systemic risks and opportunities that will impact our industry. It comprises a series of essays by highly respected local and global thought leaders and key role players including asset owners, consultants, asset managers, economists, advocacy groups, and government representatives, some of which you’ll hear from in this podcast.
Thanks for listening! Follow us on Linkedin.
Sne Dlamini 00:05
Welcome to this podcast showcasing our annual though leadership publication called 'Tomorrow'. My name is Sne Dlamini, and I head up the Institutional Client Management and Marketing teams at Old Mutual Investment Group.
We are all too aware that the foundation of strong financial markets is social stability and wellbeing, a healthy environment, and well-governed companies. While two years of the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken these foundations, they've also been momentous in the field of responsible investing, as globally, we recognized an urgent need to shift towards more sustainable modes of economic growth.
The Tomorrow publication, which is now in its seventh edition, focuses on all things related to responsible investing. Each year, the publication explores those themes that we believe are integral to attaining sustainable long-term growth and highlights long-term systemic risks and opportunities that will impact our industry going forward.
Sne Dlamini 01:05
The publication aims to create a platform for a range of voices to scrutinize and debate these important societal, market, and environmental issues. As such, it comprises a series of essays by highly respected local and global thought leaders and key role players including asset owners, consultants, asset managers, economists, advocacy groups, and government representatives.
In this podcast, we speak to a number of contributors to the latest Tomorrow publication. These include Shainal Sukha, explaining why retirement funds have the power to drive both decarbonisation and social transitions, followed by Maria Lettini, speaking to us about the role that our food system is playing in exacerbating diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans. And finally, we hear from Jon Duncan about how impact and green growth investment strategies are reshaping capitalism. Thank you for partnering with us, as we explore the investment industry shift to an approach that seeks to balance not only risk and return, but also impact.
Rob Lewenson 02:18
Hi, my name is Rob Lewenson. And I'm the Head of Old Mutual Investment Group's Responsible Investment team. It is my pleasure to welcome Shainal Sukha to this podcast. Shainal is founder and MD of Sukha and Associates, an asset consultant company that provides independent investment advice to retirement funds and corporates. Responsible Investing clearly lies at the heart of this business, as they were the first black-owned asset consulting company to become a signatory to the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investing.
Rob Lewenson 02:49
Thank you for joining us today, Shainal. I know you are passionate about responsible investing and the need to incorporate long-term ESG issues into investment strategies. So, I'm really interested to get your views on this. Let's dive right in. In your article titled, "Whose risk is it anyway?" you look at some practical ESG considerations for retirement funds. Give us some background on your thinking and what brought you to the point where ESG issues plays such an important role in your investment approach.
Shainal Sukha 03:22
Thanks, Rob. Our firm has been on a 10-year responsible investing journey, which started back in 2011, you know, when Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act was last amended. The preamble of Regulation 28 clearly states that retirement funds must consider ESG factors that may, and I quote "materially affect the sustainable long-term performance of their investments". As a firm that takes risk management seriously, we started researching what these ESG risks were back in 2011, and how they could be managed or mitigated. You know, by starting early, we were able to develop our own expertise and experience, which we could then share with our clients. In our view, consideration of ESG risks is not only a regulatory requirement, but also consistent with good risk management practices.
Our clients are all long-term investors. The problem is that ESG risks may not tangibly be felt over the short term, but it can have a significant long-term impact. And our clients will be disproportionately affected by these long-term ESG risks. In South Africa, we believe that climate change, inequality, poverty, and unemployment are material ESG risks that if left unchecked, will adversely affect the long-term performance of our clients' assets. These ESG risks will not only affect social cohesion, but also have direct and indirect effects on the economy, and macroeconomic stability. We also believe that we have a moral obligation to address remnants of our past, and to improve the wellbeing of our society and environment for future generations, especially in areas that are within our control. This is the crux of sustainability and why we actively advocate it to our clients.
Our firm's culture is also client centric, and solutions driven, we tend to be quite active in taking practical and actionable steps that can have a positive impact, no matter how small, as opposed to taking a more passive approach, and waiting for others to move on a particular issue. For example, in 2015, we noticed that our youth unemployment levels had reached unacceptable levels. So, together with our clients, we used our influence to simply encourage asset managers to set up graduate programmes to give youth valuable work experience.
At the height of state capture, where nuclear energy was favoured over renewable energy, we encouraged our clients to provide comments on the integrated resources plan, and to constructively engage with the Department of Energy. You wouldn't normally expect us from the traditional asset consultant, would you? But we feel that any responsible asset consultant must consider risks holistically, highlight such risks to clients, and where necessary, take action to help mitigate such risks.
Rob Lewenson 06:38
Thank you, Shainal, for that very insightful introduction. It's fascinating how you've managed to encapsulate a very big topic by using your energy to drive to a specific impactful outcome. So, let's just touch on what are the implications for this for South African retirement funds and your clients? And talk to us about the practicalities of decarbonizing a portfolio.
Shainal Sukha 07:06
Sure. We are deeply concerned with South Africa's high inequality, unemployment, and poverty levels. We agree with the notion that climate change will simply amplify our social risks, which is why it is imperative that South Africa addresses both environmental and social risks at the same time. As South Africa has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, perhaps she should also set social transition targets of zero poverty, single digit unemployment, and lower inequality levels.
We have previously stated that the 'E' and the 'S' must be addressed together and are glad that others are starting to agree with this view. For example, in the World Economic Forum's Global Risk Perception Survey, environmental and social risks are listed as the top eight global risks over the next 10 years. We simply can't ignore them if we are serious about risk management.
Coming back to retirement funds, they can play a critical role in achieving our environmental and social transition targets. In our article, we give practical examples of how this could be done. Retirement funds can either use their influence and power as the asset owner to drive change across the value chain and seek greater disclosure on items such as pay gap ratios, or it can allocate capital more responsibly and into the real economy. As a firm, we have integrated risk return and impact considerations into our investment process. Which is why our clients already have exposure to at least three blended finance funds, that not only target commercial returns, but also seek positive social or environmental impact.
Shainal Sukha 09:04
Coming to decarbonisation, retirement funds should consider how climate change is likely to affect the portfolio of assets. Consider the risk of stranded assets, engage with your asset managers and portfolio companies on what policies they have set regarding climate change and decarbonisation. Perhaps consider an ESG benchmark for active and passive mandates that aligns with a one and a half degree or better world scenario. Alternatively, the fund could reduce its own carbon footprint by offsetting its exposure to high carbon assets. For example, Eskom bonds with renewable energy say. We have actively implemented some of these with our retirement fund clients. It takes much more effort, but it certainly is doable.
Rob Lewenson 09:58
Thank you, Shainal. These are some very practical solutions that you have suggested to your clients. Given the scale of unemployment and poverty in South Africa, let's unpack a little bit more about the social risks and how retirement funds can actually drive the transition in a more equitable way.
Shainal Sukha 10:16
Partnerships we believe between stakeholders will be crucial. The Jobs Fund, which is backed by National Treasury, has helped crowd in retirement fund investment by setting up innovative blended finance funds with asset managers. Our clients are invested in three of these funds, as mentioned. This is a highly successful example of public private partnerships, and we feel must be scaled up. One of our clients, the consolidated retirement fund for local government, has set adjust transition and job creation as two key initiatives within their responsible investing policy. It is deliberate that the social aspect is represented in both initiatives, given how acute our social risks are. We have already started to implement this policy through actual allocation of assets in the green economy, and in blended finance funds that explicitly target job creation.
As more viable investments in the green economy identified, allocations to commercial funds that actively seek a positive social impact will also increase lockstep, thus enabling adjust transition. Yes, we do acknowledge that the retirement fund has created thus far have not been in the coal mining industry, or in towns heavily dependent on coal. But we are still playing a role in creating jobs and job opportunities in other sectors.
From these examples, you can see how resilient South Africans are in the face of such enormous challenges. We certainly punch above our weight as South Africans and can lead the world with such innovative solutions. Our firm strongly believes that if all stakeholders work together, South Africa could be the first African country to reach develop market status. I really mean this and believe that this is possible. And by doing so, achieve our social environmental transition targets as well.
Rob Lewenson 12:25
Wow. Shainal, thank you for your time. I really liked what you said about South Africans being resilient and I wholeheartedly concur on that point. And that if all stakeholders work together, we could achieve our decarbonisation and social transition targets, a truly just transition.
Rob Lewenson 12:47
Maria Lettini now joins us She is the Executive Director of UK-based FAIRR Initiative. She also leads the Global Institutional Investor Network, which is the fastest growing ESG network in the world. Maria, thank you for your time. Before we get into the details of your fascinating article in our Tomorrow publication, would you mind briefly telling us more about both the FAIRR Initiative and the Global Institutional Investor Network?
Maria Lettini 13:11
Sure. Hello, delighted to be here. So, FAIRR is the network itself, we now have over 300 institutional investor members whose combined assets total over $47 trillion. And really what we do, we're not for profit. We're a free membership organization that produces research, practical tools for investors, so they can better assess the risks, and the opportunities with how we're producing animals into the food system. And we also look at all protein supply chains. So, we're looking at meat, fish, and dairy production, as well as alternatives to meat and emerging plant-based meat alternatives.
So, we have investors from all over the world, every continent is represented in the FAIRR Initiative. And again, what we do is try to make sure that investors have resources at hand to really fill the knowledge gap that they may have in relation to global food risks and opportunities, right. So, I mean, investors have a lot of challenges when they look at environment, social, and government issues. And five years ago, when we started this network, frankly, we realized that there was a huge knowledge gap. No one was really looking at how intensive animal agriculture really played a part in effecting a lot of the big systemic risk factors that investors were looking at across environment and social factors. How we produce meat, fish, and dairy, for example, how that impacts our potential climate targets, how much emissions that sector actually produces. In fact, it produces more emissions than the entire global transport sector. It uses more fresh water than any other industry. It actually is responsible for 80% of Amazon deforestation and it's the highest user of critical antibiotics in the world.
So, when we looked at a lot of those really critical risk factors in the sector, we really found that investors were unfamiliar with those, particularly how the food system was playing a part in a lot of these really high profile risks that they were already covering today. So, in essence, we're one of the few research and data organizations that are focusing really deeply on the sector. And we also facilitate collaborative investor engagement. So, we want investors to get involved as much as they'd like in our organization, use our research and data, and then join us to engage in constructive dialogues with global corporates on a lot of environmental and social issues associated with the global protein supply chain.
Rob Lewenson 15:48
So, this talks directly into your article in our magazine, which is aptly titled "Cooking Up a Storm". You write about the role of our food system in exacerbating zoonotic diseases. Can you please explain why food production is the most significant driver of deforestation? You mentioned 80% of the Amazon being affected in this regard, and how is this contributing to zoonotic risk? Given that a lot of people are not aware of what this actually entails.
Maria Lettini 16:16
Right. I mean, it's actually quite shocking. Three out of every four new diseases are zoonotic, meaning they are transmissible from animals to humans. And really, it's, you know, prior to the Covid pandemic, I think people weren't really aware of how humans are actually affecting the animal population.
In fact, when we think about how this pandemic potentially could have been caused, and other diseases, which are, you know, quite high profile. Bird flu, swine, flu, Ebola, all stemming from animals coming closer to human habitats. And that's why we talk a lot about deforestation. Because as we begin to clear areas like the Amazon to produce soy, which is destined for the animal production system, or for cattle rearing, animals in that really critical biome move closer to humans. And that's happening all over the world. That exposes us to diseases, not just viral diseases like Covid, bird flu, swine flu, I mean, many other diseases that perhaps our systems have not been exposed, and that is a real risk.
So, what we're trying to do with our analysis, and really bring to light, is that the intensive animal agriculture system really can be a significant vector for disease.
Rob Lewenson 17:36
So, let's unpack what large scale factory farming or intensive farming is, and how does it cause antibiotic resistant bacteria? And in addition, can we touch on what that actually means for countries healthcare systems, particularly in emerging markets, where there's large tracts of land that are being farmed? It'd be great to get your insight on that.
Maria Lettini 17:59
I think this is probably one of the big lightbulb moments for investors and even consumers, right? Most of the antibiotics we produce today actually are not used for human consumption, but rather go to treat perfectly healthy animals in intensive livestock production systems. This is pretty important, because this means that by using small doses of antibiotics on a routine basis, we are actually creating the environment for bacteria and viruses to become resistant to antibiotics. And why do we do that? If you think about how we produce meat, fish, and dairy today, the volumes of meat that are produced is incredible.
So, we produce these animals in very close, confined spaces, often poorly ventilated, often with quite a bit of waste and feces. And these growing animals which are, you know, in a system which optimizes them for rapid growth to slaughter, obviously have growing and developing immune systems. We're putting them in a very stressful environment, in very close, confined spaces, and their immune systems are compromised. To counteract that compromise, we give them antibiotics daily in their food and water, right. And so, this environment means that naturally occurring bacteria in these systems are actually exposed to small doses of antibiotics on a daily basis. Viruses and bacteria being as intelligent as they are, are constantly adapting to that environment and developing resistance. This is such a critical element of how we're producing food today.
And for the most part, I would say five years ago, most people were unaware. It's an absolutely critical material financial risk for investors. It means these entire systems are going to have to change in order to be able to produce animals that make it onto our plates every day. So, if we think about over 70% of antibiotics that are produced today, globally, are actually used in the animal agriculture system to prevent rather than treat illness, this is pretty shocking. I mean, we know that when we go to the doctor, many are very hesitant to actually giving us antibiotics, right? If they're not absolutely sure we have a bacterial infection. And, you know, the protocol is very stringent. We have to take those antibiotics from day 1 to day 10. Make sure you take them all, make sure you don't dispose of them incorrectly.
But the antibiotics that we give to animals in these confined systems, right, make it into their waste, and make it into water systems. So, not only are we creating a system that is actually producing residues in the meat themselves, but the waste production in animal agriculture systems are absolutely enormous, and that makes it into our waterways as well.
AMR is financially material. If you think about how much it's going to cost health systems, it's absolutely incredible. By the year 2050, we will have more AMR cases that will be more financially material than that of cancer. It is estimated to cost a total of $60 billion annually over a period from 2015 to 2050. And these are low estimations, estimations that are in the billions and trillions of dollars by 2050. We have heard that it could knock off up to 3.4% of global GDP. These costs are incredible. When you just look at Thailand, and there was a study done back in 2010 alone. AMR costs that economy more than a billion and a half dollars. And in 2017, the cost of China was estimated to be 77 billion alone. And that number is very conservative, because it's very hard to pinpoint deaths by antibiotics, because often people are passing away for other diseases as well. But at that point, multiple antibiotics have been used, most of which then will be the patients would have been resistant.
So, this is an absolutely critical issue, it's definitely going to be a strain on healthcare systems. Unless we begin to reduce the use of critically important antibiotics in our food system, and really focus in on how we can support healthcare systems to be able to treat and diagnose antimicrobial resistance, we're going to have a big problem on our hands. In fact, we already do. This is something that is occurring every single day and is increasing in incidence all over the world.
Rob Lewenson 22:38
Very scary stuff. Pardon the pun, but you've given us a lot of food for thought, how do we change the system of food production? And particularly what is FAIRR doing to lobby and affect real change in terms of how we do it. Does it start at the consumer level? Or does it start at the sovereign level? And how does that actually play out in terms of lobbying and activism?
Maria Lettini 22:59
Yeah, everybody has a role here. Consumers increasingly are becoming more aware of how their food is produced, where their food is produced, and the ingredients that are going into that food. They need to begin to vote with their wallet. And some countries around the world don't have that option.
But, you know, my view is that we shouldn't go for the lowest common denominator approach, that's not going to help support economies, particularly those who are dependent on agriculture as a key income driver. We need to make sure that we're supporting developing countries to maintain the animal agriculture systems that will actually support growing livelihoods and increasing jobs. And by intensifying the systems, we run the risk of actually reducing the number of workers that are needed in the system. So, I think that's one element that's very important.
Tied to that is policy. In the EU this year, we'll have regulation that comes into place that says using antibiotics for growth promotion, or routinely, is going to be illegal. And that is extremely important. We need to see that type of regulation around the world and that will also begin to affect trade and exports and imports. So, the EU is not going to be receiving meat, fish, and dairy that has been produced using antibiotics, and that will start to change the system. And equally, you know, as institutional investors, we need to be asking the companies that we hold in our portfolios that are related to food, what they're doing to manage these supply chain risks. Not only sort of epidemic/pandemic side in relation to deforestation, animal welfare, working conditions, food safety, but also in regard to antibiotic usage. Companies, such as the fast food companies, McDonald's, etc. have made commitments and have policies to reduce the use of antibiotics in their global supply chains.
We need to hold them to account, and investors are in a really prime position to be able to have these discussions with some of the largest global food companies in order to make sure that they're safeguarding our food system, safeguarding our global protein chains, and thinking about other options in order to provide nutritious food for a growing population.
Rob Lewenson 25:17
Wow, certainly some very interesting insights there, Maria, we're truly appreciative of the work that the FAIRR Initiative is doing globally in order to stabilize and improve our global consumption and production of food. We thank you very much, and we look forward to working with you in future.
Maria Lettini 25:38
Thanks very much, Rob, take care.
Rob Lewenson 25:42
It is my great pleasure to welcome Jon Duncan to this podcast. Until the end of 2021, Jon was my colleague, and now he remains a mentor and friend. Jon is relocating with his family to Switzerland and will remain in the impact investment space going forward. Jon joined Old Mutual Investment Group in 2011 and was instrumental in rolling out a Responsible Investment programme across Old Mutual's global operations.
This included establishing the protocols for embedding ESG principles into our investment decision making processes. He was also involved in driving both the industries and our own policies and guidelines in terms of Responsible Investment practices. Jon further played a pivotal role in developing green investment products, and in establishing our listed equity stewardship service.
Rob Lewenson 26:33
Jon, thank you for joining us. Grateful for your contribution to the Tomorrow publication, a publication that you brought into being seven years ago. In your article titled "Challenging our Capitalist Ideals", you look at the evolution of the efficient frontier. Can you please explain why you think we are in the midst of a major transformation of our capitalist system?
Jon Duncan 26:58
Hi, Rob, great to be speaking with you, been really great to contribute to the Tomorrow publication. This is the seventh edition, and certainly this year's edition presents a number of great articles that point towards the fact that capitalism is indeed evolving. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that capitalism has always been evolving. It's an evolutionary changing our way of transacting all the way from, you know, limited liability company through to the open outcry market system through to the electronic exchanges we have today, through to the market thinking about environmental, social, governance risks.
I think what's really important right now, is this idea that the markets don't function in a vacuum. We need to start thinking about the markets operating in the context of a biophysical system and a social system. And it's the interconnectivity between these systems and this notion of externalities, i.e. the impact that the economy can have on both society and environment, is one of the new, I guess, central thoughts, that is exercising the minds of economists and people in the market, certainly over the last decade.
And I think this trend is being driven by a lot more clarity from the scientific community, around long-term systemic risk issues, things like climate change, or perhaps even the biophysical risks that we've experienced through the current Covid pandemic, through to, you know, growing calls from society, for the world to address things like inequality, or inclusion, or gender diversity. And so, I guess these long-term systemic risk issues, both biophysical and social, are becoming much more visible and present. And I think this is driving capitalism to evolve yet again.
Rob Lewenson 28:48
Thank you, Jon. Capitalism has contributed to lifting billions of people out of poverty over the last 50 years, but indeed, has also created many of today's environmental and social problems. How can the system begin to play a more active role in solving for long-term system risk?
Jon Duncan 29:09
One of the big challenges is that the market and certainly a lot of historical economic theory has not appropriately accounted for externalities. So, you know, where a profit maker generates an impact on society or the environment, either through their operations, or through their goods and services, that is unpriced. It has erosive effects on the stability of either society's functioning or the biophysical functioning. So, this mispricing of externalities has been one of the, I guess, weaknesses of our historical capitalist approach.
I think the evolutionary environment we're in now, from a capitalist perspective, means that the market system, by internalizing more clearly these long run systemic costs, allows itself to start evolving towards the production of capital goods and services, social capital, human capital, biophysical capital, in a way, in the first instance stops the harm to social and biophysical systems, but also potentially has the capacity to start enhancing the resilience of those systems going forward.
And so, I guess what I'm saying is that the capitalist system, as it stands today, has got this opportunity to start directing flows of capital towards companies and enterprises that generate goods and services that are by their nature, low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. And by more accurately pricing, you know, externalities that come from climate change, or pollution, or the harmful effects of certain products in terms of how one consumes them, by more effectively pricing those risks, we start to provide the right kind of economic incentive for those organizations who can solve some of these long-term systemic risk outcomes.
Now, people often say, well, surely, we need the right kind of incentive price. And I think that is indeed true. We do need a much clearer, stronger policy environment. And certainly, what I'm seeing globally is growing appetite by policymakers around the world to start encouraging the development of policy, and the development of economic taxonomies, that start telling us about the kind of economic growth we want. It's not just growth at any cost, you know, it's not only just the quantity of growth, it's also the quality of growth.
So, we're seeing that on the policy front, and certainly in South Africa, that's true. We have the National Treasury developing a green economy taxonomy for South Africa, which starts to create the right kind of policy environment and framework to direct capital in a way that's also some of these long-term systemic risks. At the same time, we're also seeing a lot more clearly changing consumer preferences. So, there's a great article in this year's Tomorrow publication that shows the growth in consumer appetite for goods and services that are, for want of a better word, sustainable, i.e. they are actively reducing their impact. So, changing consumer appetites is the second point.
And then the third point I would point towards is that the actual on the ground economics of green business is starting to play out. So, the economic incentive is starting to show through. So, as it stands today, cost per kilowatt hour of energy production from solar is competitive to some of your more traditional, more polluting fossil fuel-based energy production processes. And those three things: policy, consumer appetite, and on the ground economic outcomes, I think collectively starts to give us evidence that actually capitalism, if directed in the right way, can actually play a more active role in terms of solving for long-term environmental and social problems. So, ja, back to you, Rob.
Rob Lewenson 32:56
Well, that's very interesting, Jon. So, speaking of capital flows, what are some of the challenges we face to drive change in listed markets around the world? And do you see any progress being made to address these challenges?
Jon Duncan 33:10
Thanks very much, Rob, ja, great question. I mean; indeed, the listed market has got an important role to play in terms of addressing some of the long-term systemic risk issues that we've just been speaking about. There are, of course, challenges, a lot of capital allocation in the listed markets typically happens using, you know, traditional risk return, efficient frontier type approach. One of the challenges is to shift the thinking in order to triangulate for risk return and impact in the listed space. Articulating and reporting on impact is not always easy. And this is a challenge of data and metrics. And there's a lot of work occurring around the world to try and solve for some of these issues. So, some great work being done out of Harvard on hybrid metrics that speak to impact. A lot of work being done through IFRS and other sort of global accounting bodies to try and standardize some of the frameworks that are used for reporting ESG data. And I think, as that starts to occur, we'll be able to tackle more clearly the impact narrative for the listed market.
And then, of course, you know, one has to also deal with some of the hard truths of the listed market. One person sells, it means that somebody else must be buying. So, while I might choose to structure my portfolio to be less carbon intensive relative to a benchmark, the overall net emissions of the markets are not necessarily going to reduce simply as a consequence of me, an individual, reducing my portfolio exposures. So, thinking about impact and real world change through the listed markets is important.
I think one of the really important dimensions of creating impact in the listed space, and it's something you'll know well, Rob, is engaging with companies, over time, on how they are having impact on the ground. And I think about some of the work we've been doing on transformation. I think about some of the engagements we've been having with companies on sort of supply chain risk, or perhaps their operational carbon footprint, you know, sustained engagement with companies on these matters has real world impact. And it's those kinds of evolutions which I think are exciting for driving the more substantive role that the listed markets can play in solving for some of these long-term systemic risks.
Rob Lewenson 35:41
Jon, thank you for everything you've done for the team, for responsible investment over the years, for this Tomorrow publication, and for your time today. We certainly wish you all the very best and certainly hope that you will, at some point in the future, contribute to our Tomorrow publication once again.
Jon Duncan 36:00
Thank you, Rob. It's been great speaking with you and all the best in leading the team and the work of Old Mutual around responsible investment.
Old Mutual 36:09
Thank you for listening to the Old Mutual Investment Group's podcast, which forms part of our Tomorrow publication, a publication that focuses on all things related to responsible investing.
In exploring some of the changes needed to sustain healthy, well-functioning financial systems, we chatted to Shainal Sukha on the role retirement funds can play in driving environmental and social change. Maria Lettini then talked about the role of investors in addressing pandemic risks in meat supply chains, and Jon Duncan concluded with discussing how capitalism is evolving to balance both the quality and quantity of growth as investors intentionally target low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive outcomes.
To read our latest Tomorrow publication, go to oldmutualinvest.com and join us as we explore the global investment industry's shift to an approach that seeks to balance not only risk and return and also impact.