A few days ago, Andrew Cuomo, the much lauded governor of New York – who recently captivated legions of fans due to his handling of daily coronavirus briefings – spoke of the need to have personal protective equipment (PPE) manufactured in the US and accessible on home soil.
He framed this as an urgent matter of national security and went on to recount having to rely on a delivery from China by way of a private plane owned by a billionaire American businessman.
As I heard him say this, I thought to myself that this is one of the ithat will come about as a result of the pandemic: looking at what nations should have available on home turf, rather than depending on foreign supplies, along the lines of food security that I wrote about recently.
In the meantime, sustainable investing is coming out as a top contender for investment dollars, and it’s where those with money to part with (willingly) are putting it. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and passive funds that integrate environmental, social and/or governance (ESG) factors registered record growth in the first quarter of this year, gathering $10.5 billion (Dh38.56bn), according to global financial services firm Morningstar.
‘Environmental’ covers such things as renewable energy or the impact a company has on the environment; ‘social’ covers how companies deal with issues such as fair pay for their employees; ‘governance’ includes the aims management has for a company.
