Dialogue between Anthony Alexander, writer, consultant and Director for Research for Alan Baxter & Associates engineering and planning consultancy; and David Vigar, report author.   AA: My work in the built environment sector is focussed on the practical delivery of carbon reductions. This is affected by a number of factors including: the extremely long development cycles in planning, urban design, architecture and construction, the need to transform the working practices and business models of the commercial property sector, and the institutional inertia and steep learning curve related to any change in policy.    Hence, I thought your analogy in the introduction to the Beyond Peak Carbon report that the government was like an architect and business was like a builder was rather an interesting one. 

Marking the 20th Anniversary of SRI in the Rockies offers more than an opportunity to review the hard-won progress of investors to prove that socially responsible investing is viable and now clearly out-performs traditional mainstream investing.  Since the credit crises of 2008-2009, we can now assert with confidence that investing for long-term sustainability and taking ESG factors as material to asset valuation could have actually helped avert these crises.   We investors are now winning the paradigm battle and cite the evidence to show that the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is bunk and by the same token show that the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and, yes, even the sacred tenets of the "rational investor" and the Black-Scholes Merton Options Pricing Model all are part of history.

In the Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, an Emperor goes out among his subjects in his underwear. Two swindlers posing as tailors have convinced him he’s wearing a suit made from cloth that’s invisible to anyone who is stupid.  Not wanting to accept that he’s stupid, the Emperor parades through his empire believing he’s fully dressed.It now is up to the U.S. Senate to make sure Uncle Sam is not only fully dressed, but dressed for success when he shows up in Copenhagen Dec. 7 to work on a global climate deal. Access the whole article at:  http://www.forceforgood.com/Articles/Dressing-for-Copenhagen-436/1.aspx