A personal note from the Green Matters Team at Willow,

Thank you sincerely for joining us this year as we shared with you some of the headlines that caught our eyes, informed the trends we see developing, and kept us all conscious as investors.

As we move into 2021, we would love your feedback so we can continue to deliver thoughtful and insightful content to you. Please complete this short survey and we’ll mail you a Willow canvas bag! 

For our last newsletter of 2020 we wanted to keep it light and share a guided meditation from the Willow Team. Wishing you a happy, healthy new year!
 

Meditation: Breath in, smile, now let it go. 

• A guided mediation for loving change from the Willow team [20 min] (youtube)

2020: What at year… 

• 7 wins that gave us hope for the environment in 2020 (natgeo)

• A look at the remarkable women+ who made 2020 (ellevest)

• Around the world, people yearn for significant change rather than a return to a “pre-COVID normal” (ipsos)

Carbonomics: The real emerging market. 

• Companies taking strong climate action rose 46% this year (bloomberg)

• Japan adopts green growth plan to go carbon free by 2050 (ABC)

   

Trends: Shifting like the weather.

• Food futurology: How will we be eating 10 years from now?(foodnavigator) 

• Firms want to adjust supply chains post-pandemic, but changes take time (wsj)

• Each new generation has a harder time overcoming the wealth of their parents (vocal)

Blockchain: The digital push forward continues.

• Why blockchain is the solution to sustainable energy (medium)

Environment: The not silent crisis.

• Seven wins that gave us hope for the environment in 2020 (nationalgeographic)

• The top eleven must-see sustainability documentaries (triplepundit)

• Should carbon credits count if the forests are already preserved? (bloomberg)

   

Companies: It’s time to step up. 

• Why brands need purpose to survive now more than ever (sustainablebrands)

• More companies holding cash reserves at Black-serving banks (forbes)

• Leading car maker (accounting for 1% of global CO2 emissions) to link top executives’ pay to ESG targets (yahoofinance)

• 45 of the 50 largest US companies turned a profit since March, yet the majority cut staff and gave almost 80% of total profits as buybacks and dividends (washingtonpost)

• Here’s how corporate America did on their 2020 climate goals [visual] (bloomberg)

Tech: The good and the bad. 

• How COVID-19 accelerated automation (futurism) 

• 425 of the Fortune 500 companies may have been victims of massive cyberattack (cnn) 

• Capella Space’s new satellite is eerily observant (input)

Energy & Renewables: Powering our future.

• The world’s largest renewable energy ‘Megapark’ will be the size of Singapore (sciencealert) 

• Electricity from a new coal plant is now 177% more expensive than electricity from new solar panels (fastcompany)

Economy: People & ideas.

• Putting the green in greenback? ESG investors call for companies to report on “extinction accounting” (reuters)

• Small business optimism falls by the largest amount since April (fanniemae) 

• Wholesale traders have outsized influence on global food markets and are engaging in collusion for more profits (AEA) 

• How people spend their time globally (visualcapitalist)

Carbonomics: A new driving force for change.

• The role of AI in carbon reduction and energy efficiency (forbes)

• Pandemic caused CO2 emission to drop of 2.4 billion tonnes, but that’s only 7% of our 39 gigatonne human impact in 2020 (fastcompany)

• E.U. agrees to slash carbon emissions by 2030 (nyt) 

• The green hydrogen dream is no longer a dream (triplepundit)

   

Economy: Life uh, always finds a way…

• Fixing the US child care crisis could deliver $1.6 trillion boost to GDP (bloomberg)

• One in six restaurants has closed nationwide due to pandemic (bloomberg)

• Pandemic + recession = multiple expansion? (compound)

• Eighth annual conscious consumer spending index results are in (csrwire)

   

Glass Ceilings: It’s time to step up.

• New report: missing perspectives – women six times less likely to be expert, source or protagonist in news stories (shethepeople)

• New report: only 8% of all chair, CEO and CFO positions are occupied by women at S&P 500 companies (equileap)

• Forbes releases 2020 list of world’s 100 most powerful women (forbes)

• Mellody Hobson becomes only Black female board chair of S&P 500 company (bloomberg)

   

Investing: Align your dollars with the rest of your life.

• Survey: Investors plan to double their ESG investing over the next 5 years (blackrock)

• Victory belongs to the patient investor (tebi) 

• The psychology of the stock market, in one image (pragcap) 

• [podcast] Jeff Currie: Goldman Sachs commodities chief on ESG, carbon pricing, and new technologies (smartermarkets) 
   

Corporate Social Responsibility: Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

• Corporate philotomy: the next evolution of corporate social responsibility (hbr)

• CEOs from 37 corporations join the OneTen initiative, pledging 1 million jobs for Black Americans (wsj)

• AI will change the world, so we must make AI more representative (nature)

The Tides of the Economy: Always shifting.

• How the must-have hipster vessel of DIY authenticity also became a foreboding signal of the economy (marker) 

• The death of the department store and the American middle class (vox) 

• Barry Ritholtz 2021 Outlook Year in Preview (ritholtz) 

• Wages for the top 1% skyrocketed 160% since 1979 while the share of wages for the bottom 90% shrunk (epi)

• 42% of people falling behind as COVID-19 widens the wealth gap, report finds (CNBC)

Change: The one thing we can count on. 

• We’re at a turning point on climate change. But most countries are still choosing fossil fuels over clean energy, report says (CNN) 

• City transportation ecosystems are suddenly getting more diverse, creating an opportunity to (finally) rethink the car (wired) 

• How COVID-19 is changing our food system (quartz)

• Six innovative solutions to the housing crisis (ssir)

Crypto & Digital Currency: The advances continue.

• Will central-bank digital currencies break the banking system? (economist) 

• Bank of Canada may be accelerating digital currency plans (decrypt)

• Visa partners with Ethereum digital-dollar startup (forbes) 

• The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain is here. Now what? (consensys)

Greenwashing: Let’s get real.

• Research firm TerraChoice highlights the seven sins of greenwashing? (ul)

• Unraveling the ambiguity of Net-Zero pledges (newclimate)

• NASDAQ asks SEC to require one woman and one “diverse” director on board for each listed company (nytimes)

Sustainable Investing: Align your dollars with the rest of your life.

• Gen Z is pushing wealthy parents to more sustainable portfolios (financialnews)

• Most investors now believe ESG has a positive impact on returns (globest)

• Harvard team quantifies true corporate profit by adding or subtracting impact from bottom line (bloomberg)