Finance

ESG round-up: Australia publishes sustainable finance roadmap

Published

2 years ago

June 20, 2024

ESG round-up: Australia publishes sustainable finance roadmap

The Australian government has published a sustainable finance roadmap, setting out timelines for a series of key policy pillars and regulatory moves. Among the topics covered are mandatory climate-related financial disclosures, taxonomy implementation and developing sustainable product labels.

Kristy Graham, CEO of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute, said the roadmap provided “welcome clarity” and praised the mentions of nature and climate adaptation in the roadmap.

Aegon UK is set to switch 74 percent of the £12 billion ($15 billion; €14 billion) largest default fund of its workplace pension offering into decarbonising mandates. The allocations, which will be managed by BlackRock, cover passive equity and debt investments, with the switch set to be made by the end of this year. The funds have an initial reduction in emissions intensity against their benchmark followed by 7 percent year-on-year reductions, and are set to also have a 20 percent improvement in taxonomy-aligned green revenues.

The fund will also begin investing in private assets, with allocations to private debt and alternative fixed income to be managed Aegon’s asset management wing. Infrastructure, private equity and forestry assets will be managed by JPMorgan Asset Management. Lorna Blyth, head of investment propositions at Aegon, said the move would “significantly support” the firm’s desire to put £500 million into climate solutions by 2026.

Dutch pension funds have cut their investments in fossil fuel producers by just over two-thirds since the Paris Agreement, according to new analysis by a coalition of Dutch NGOs. The group looked at seven of the largest funds, which together manage around 70 percent of Dutch pension assets, and found that holdings in fossil companies had fallen from €15.5 billion in 2017 to €5.0 billion in 2023. PME, the pension scheme for the mechanical and electrical engineering sector, and civil service pension scheme ABP have seen the largest contraction in holdings, ditching 92 percent and 81 percent respectively.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has one active enforcement case against a company on climate grounds, according to a freedom of information request filed by legal group ClientEarth. Documents shared with lawmakers this year show that the issues in the case “had been a matter of supervisory focus with the firm for more than two years” before the investigation was opened.

Commerzbank has described proposals put forward by the EU’s financial regulators to reform SFDR as “promising” but said there were some aspects that could be developed further. A note from the bank’s head of ESG research, Stephan Kippe, said the product category proposals should address the main shortcomings of the current framework. He added that there should be a separate impact category, and designing a framework for transition criteria “could prove challenging”.

Planet Tracker has accused the plastic industry of engaging in greenwashing due to its promotion of recycling as the “silver bullet” to the plastic pollution crisis, in a new report. “The plastic industry’s tactics have successfully shifted focus away from upstream measures, such as limiting production and adopting alternative materials,” said John Willis, director of research at Planet Tracker. “By promoting the illusion of recyclability, the industry has effectively passed the financial burden of waste treatment onto local municipalities and waste-pickers, often the financially weakest link in the plastic supply chain.” In May, Responsible Investor spoke to investors who are ramping up engagement with companies on the issue.

Crédit Agricole’s wealth management arm Indosuez has launched an Article 9 green bond fund. The fund, a 2028 fixed maturity fund, invests in around 60 ICMA-aligned green bonds across a broad sector and geographical range.

The Society of Pension Professionals has published a practical guide for UK trustees to engage with their asset managers on ESG. The guide aims to provide an outline of various disclosure requirements, ESG obligations for managers, and information that trustees need from them. Sophia Singleton, the society’s president, said there was “still some uncertainty” around the topic and that the guide aimed to raise awareness and understanding.

The number of companies disclosing a transition plan that they regard as 1.5C-aligned has increased 44 percent since 2022, according to CDP, the environmental data disclosure nonprofit. One-quarter of companies (5,906) that disclosure to CDP report having climate transition plans in place last year. But just 1 percent of firms report against all 21 climate transition plan indicators in CDP’s questionnaire.

The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has published revised guidance on how central banks should disclose climate-related information. The updates to the guidance, first issued in 2021, introduce two tiers for disclosure: “baseline”, for foundational information that supervisors should disclose; and “building blocks”, for more “advanced pieces of information that central banks ‘are encouraged to’ disclose”. Building block KPIs tabled by the NGFS include forward-looking metrics for physical and transition risks, and their external communications strategy for raising awareness on climate risks.

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Finance

How can I illustrate our financial position to a spouse who shows little interest?

Published

8 hours ago

June 3, 2026

Press Room

How can I illustrate our financial position to a spouse who shows little interest?

Reader question: My spouse has little interest in our financial position. As we age, this concerns me. I try to share some basic information (income, spending, account balances, debt, and so on) each month but rarely get a response. I think graphs or charts might be of more interest to her than a bunch of numbers. What recommendations would you have for illustrating our financial position so that I am not the only person aware of how we are situated? Thanks!

Answer: Your situation is pretty common. Most couples I know develop a division of labor over time, where one person is in charge of financial matters and the other person is less involved. That’s definitely the case for my husband and me. He’s in charge of paying all the monthly bills and preparing our tax returns, but the financial planning and investment decisions are up to me. This type of arrangement might work well for a long time, but can become less sustainable with age, particularly if the “finance person” in the relationship dies or develops a major health issue.

Online tools and mind maps

Illustrating your financial situation with charts and graphs is a great idea that might help your spouse become a little more involved. Morningstar’s  Portfolio X-Ray  tool includes a variety of images that help illustrate your financial situation. Websites for most major brokerage firms also include some visual tools. Schwab, for example, offers a Portfolio Checkup and a bar graph illustrating your account’s monthly income from dividends and interest income. Vanguard has a Portfolio Watch tool and a variety of performance illustrations, tools, and calculators.

A  mind map, which we used with clients when I worked for a financial advisory firm, can be another way to picture your entire financial situation on one page. There are various  softwaretemplates  for drawing a mind map, or you can simply sketch it out with a large sheet of paper and a pencil. Start with your names at the center of the page. Then draw spokes connecting to various categories, such as names of other family members; investment accounts; real estate and other assets, insurance policies, estate plans, key goals and values, and contact information for accountants, estate planners, and other professionals. It can be helpful to go through the mind map together and make any updates needed at least once a year.

Other ways to communicate about money

A few other ideas—though not related to charts and graphs—might also be useful.

I like the idea of putting together a  net worth statement  that itemizes cash, taxable accounts, real estate, retirement accounts, and debt for each member of the couple as well as items owned jointly. It’s a good idea to update this document at least once a year and  discuss it as a couple. If you set up the document as a spreadsheet, you can include columns with additional information such as account numbers, what each account is used for, which accounts are subject to required minimum distributions, or tax issues like potential capital gains.

Many couples also put together a  binder  (sometimes humorously called a “Doomsday Book”) that contains information about where to find important paperwork, insurance policies, how bills are paid, what each account is for, steps the surviving spouse will need to take, final wishes, and any other critical information.

A well-qualified financial adviser can bridge the information gap

Finally, you could consider working with a good  financial adviser,  who can help involve your spouse in financial matters while you’re still living and step in to fully manage investments and personal finance decisions if you pass away before your spouse. Make sure the adviser holds the Certified Financial Planner designation and charges fees that are reasonable. Although a 1% fee is still the industry standard for accounts of $1 million or less, it’s possible to find advisers who charge significantly less, including a few who price their services based on hours worked instead of a percentage of assets under management.

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This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.

Amy C. Arnott, CFA, is a portfolio strategist for Morningstar and co-host of The Long View podcast.

Finance

Proximo Congress 2026: US Energy & Infrastructure Finance | Insights | Mayer Brown

Published

18 hours ago

June 3, 2026

Press Room

Proximo Congress 2026: US Energy & Infrastructure Finance | Insights | Mayer Brown

Mayer Brown is a proud sponsor of Proximo Congress 2026. This senior meeting of the US energy, infrastructure, and digital infrastructure finance community is shaped around the questions credit and investment committees are actually asking in 2026: how asset classes are converging, how risk is being priced in a recalibrated policy and geopolitical environment, and how public and private capital are being structured together to deliver projects at scale.

Mayer Brown has also been recognized for three separate awards which will be presented during the event. These awards include:

Proximo North America Transport Deal of the Year 2025 – SR 400 Peach Partners
Proximo North America Rail Deal of the Year 2025 – Brightline West
Proximo North America LNG Deal of the Year 2025 – Port Arthur LNG 2

For more information, visit the event website.

Finance

What are nonconforming mortgages and what are the risks?

Published

1 day ago

June 2, 2026

Press Room

What are nonconforming mortgages and what are the risks?

If you have ever taken out a mortgage, you’ll know there are a lot of requirements to meet. You may need to put down a certain amount and have a debt-to-income ratio below a certain threshold. You may also run into limits on how much you can borrow or what sources of income the lender will count.

These rules do not apply to all mortgages — just to conforming mortgages, which is what the majority of borrowers take out. However, mortgage lenders are increasingly offering what are known as nonconforming loans, or mortgages that do not “comply with every one of the strict standards put in place after the housing crisis,” said The Wall Street Journal. While “still a small portion,” the “share of mortgages using alternative lending practices” has “doubled in size over the past three years.”