All articles by Raj Thamotheram

  • RAJ THAMOTHERAM
    Special Report

    What should EU investors do if the Republicans win the White House?

    November 2023 (Magazine)

    Sustainability-minded investors should wake up to the challenge of right-wing populism and its threat to climate policy 

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: ISSB, please don’t choose to play small

    January 2022 (Magazine)

    The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is a major development. ISSB has rightly made climate risk its initial priority but now has an important choice to make. Will it help investors address climate-related systemic risk or will it continue with ‘business as usual’, enabling investors to play small?

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: What COP26 means for you

    December 2021 (Magazine)

     Whether the COP26 glass is half full or half empty is the wrong question.

  • Young-jin Choi
    Special Report

    Strategy: Focus on real-world GHG

    Towards Net Zero: COP26 and Beyond

    A portfolio decarbonisation framework for real-world greenhouse gas emissions impact 

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Special Report

    Raj Thamotheram: From urgency to agency

    Towards Net Zero: COP26 and Beyond

    A recipe for change that can be enacted by positive mavericks

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Vaccine apartheid and investors

    October 2021 (Magazine)

    This column last covered COVID-19 vaccine inequity in June. Since then, using The Economist’s model of “excess deaths”, there may have been more than 4m deaths globally. That means 37,700 people dying every day, arguably unnecessarily. This number comes with many caveats but it’s possible (indeed probable) that the figure could be much higher.

  • raj thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Commenting from the cheap seats or on the playing field?

    September 2021 (Magazine)

    Scientifically literate investment executives who care about the future of human civilisation and the ecosystem will be painfully aware that Jean-Claude Juncker’s comment about the euro-zone also relates to the climate crisis.

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: It’s corporate tax, stupid

    July/August 2021 (Magazine)

    Bill Clinton used the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” to help him win the 1992 US presidential election. The same now applies to corporate tax in 2021.

  • Raj Thamotheram and Stewart Adkins
    Features

    Long term matters: Grandpa, what did you do in the COVID wars?

    June 2021 (Magazine)

    Pharmaceutical companies in the West and their host governments are very confident today, and some even speak of “post crisis investing”. Certainly, pharma’s scientific credentials have been demonstrated and the public in the UK and the US in particular are seeing the potential end to lockdowns. 

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Is your board colluding with E(rratic) S(uperficial) G(reenwash)?

    May 2021 (Magazine)

    ESG is booming, but the industry risks becoming complacent. Fund managers are creating new products that meet markets’ needs more than those of society and the thin ‘layer’ of ESG in core investment processes is not contributing to the much-needed transformation of our economies and societies. 

  • Bill Browder 1
    Features

    Long-term matters: Stop investing in autocracy

    February 2021 (Magazine)

    Europeans observing the US ‘near miss’ constitutional crisis have a choice – be spectators or show responsibility

  • The carbon pricing model
    Features

    Long term matters: What kind of decarbonisation matters most?

    January 2021 (Magazine)

    This article was written on the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. In 2015, the world committed to keep warming below 2°C, meaning decisive annual reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Instead we have had a 7% increase in GHG since 2015 and are on track for about 3°C warming with a high risk of irreversible tipping points.

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: A time to be hopeful and active?

    December 2020 (Magazine)

    Jaap van Dam, principal director of investment strategy at PGGM, is right: pension funds need to understand politics. We have two additions. First, the ‘outside-in’ focus – how politics affects portfolios – is a great starting point. But investors cannot stop there, they have considerable influence on politics whether for good or bad. 

  • Opinion Pieces

    Leading viewpoint: Letter to the top

    November 2020 (Magazine)

    A letter to the top 100 heads of ESG at global asset managers

  • raj thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Addressing autocratic risk

    October (2020) Magazine

    In an email interview, economist and MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellow, Emmanuel Saez, confirmed what many investment insiders know: “Markets are notoriously bad at anticipating catastrophes.”

  • raj thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Tales of a chance ESG investor

    September 2020 (Magazine)

    I didn’t intend to get a permanent job in ‘responsible investment’: my pitch for a consulting contract got misfiled in a recruitment folder and the rest really is history. Having held two good jobs in the sector, at USS and Axa Investment Management, I appreciate the 12 years I’ve spent inside the investment world.

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long term matters: Risk calls for universal investors

    July/August 2020 (Magazine)

    I’m looking for a senior executive from a major institutional investor who has “systemic risk” in their job description. 

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long Term Matters: Time to apply pressure to banks

    June 2020 (Magazine)

    Remember how the financial sector lobbied against the Financial Transaction Tax? Imagine it lobbies as hard, but for pandemic recovery programmes to include a carbon price. Totally unrealistic? Exactly my point. Failure to price this externality is why capital has not been reallocated and the finance sector’s slow pace of change are two sides of the same coin. 

  • Raj Thamotheram
    Features

    Long Term Matters: Learning from COVID-19

    May 2020 (Magazine)

    As the tide of the Second World War was turning in favour of the Allies, there was a ferment of discussion – initially bottom up – about how to build a better world when the war was over. While loved ones were fighting overseas and people at home were struggling with rationing and movement restrictions, some made the time to think about the future. The Bretton Woods Agreement, establishing fixed exchange rates, happened ten months before the war ended in Europe.

  • Raj Thamotheram and Alison Taylor
    Opinion Pieces

    Long Term Matters: Investing in an age of pandemics

    April 2020 (Magazine)

    Pandemics are master classes in managing existential uncertainty. Being overwhelmed is ‘normal’. Here are seven actions that we can take as citizens and investment professionals. The focus is on the US and the UK: their governments are floundering. The unravelling in the US is dangerous for investors. Both the UK and the US are very responsive to the financial sector.