Inside: Predicting the weather is a growing business on Wall Street; Sustainable investing assets hit $30.7 trillion globally; It might be the top for oil drillers; Amazon has bested everyone this year — in shareholder proposals. — Emily Chasan 

Sustainable Finance

Meteorologists are heading to Wall Street. Blaming the weather for poor performance just doesn't work as well in a warming world where billion-dollar disasters from droughts and storms are common. That is making meteorologists the new high priests of finance as they help predict weather-related shipping delays or risks to floating oil rigs. 

Disaster costs aren't just limited to banks. AT&T has also turned to 30-year climate modeling as natural disasters have cost the company $874 million since 2016. Miner Rio Tinto also said this week that it expects iron ore shipments at the lower end of guidance this year after a tropical cyclone in damaged a crucial port. 

Sustainable assets are grabbing market share. Global socially responsible investments grew by 34 percent to $30.7 trillion over the past two years, lifted by Japanese pension funds, retail investors everywhere and broad, growing concern about climate change. Separately, the Global Impact Investing Network said the fast-growing impact investing market is estimated to be at $502 billion. 
 

ING is looking at embedding sustainability goals into supply-chain financing. The Dutch bank is developing financial products that would allow a company's greener suppliers to be paid faster or get a better rate. "In the supply chain, most of the time, that's where the real risk is," said Anne van Riel, ING's head of sustainable finance in the Americas. 

Exxon Mobil can omit an investor proposal from its proxy that called for the oil giant to align its business with the Paris Agreement and set greenhouse gas reduction targets, the SEC said. 

In Brief

• BlackRock boosted its bet on clean energy. The money manager invested in CleanCapital, which owns and manages $300 million worth of small-scale U.S. solar systems.
• Wall Street will now have to earn its Patagonia vests. The outdoor gear maker is cracking down on co-branding its corporate logo vests, shifting its focus to "mission-driven companies that prioritize the planet."
• Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder and former CEO of sustainable household brand Seventh Generation, is now CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council. 
• Global Infrastructure Partners told investors it is done financing the coal-fired power generation business after a disastrous deal in Chile.
• Fitch Ratings named Mervyn Tang as Head of ESG Research for its Sustainable Finance Group, based in Hong Kong. 
• TPG has started an investigation into whether fired executive Bill McGlashan's involvement in the national college admissions scandal bled over into the private equity firm's business, including the Rise Fund. Bloomberg's Sabrina Willmer explores the star investor's rise and fall. 
• Aegon Asset Management, which oversees more than $14 billion in socially responsible assets, launched a new sustainable fixed income strategy. 

Environment

Is it the top for oil drillers? Saudi Arabia's Aramco may be the world's most profitable company, but Norway's move to divest oil explorers is already raising pressure on investors around the world to do the same amid concerns that the world doesn't really need to find more oil.

Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil major that wants to become an electricity company, just "fired a shot across the bow of oil lobbyists," writes Bloomberg Opinion's Liam Denning. In a report this week, Shell summarized its relationship with 19 industry associations, detailing which ones it felt it was "misaligned" with on climate change. Shell plans to leave the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association over its climate-change policy stance.  

Ryanair Holdings, which calls itself "Europe's greenest & cleanest airline" was one of the 10 biggest polluters in Europe last year -- a first for a company that doesn’t run coal-fired power plants. The remaining slots in the top 10 list from Transport & Environment were taken by utilities.

New York lawmakers approved a ban on single-use plastic bags, forcing residents to pay for paper ones or re-use their own during store visits. Meanwhile, legislation approved by Tennessee lawmakers would block cities and counties from issuing plastic container bans. 

This is how fast plastic straws are disappearing. In 2018, at one of the world's largest straw manufacturers, 90 percent of straws were made of traditional plastic. By the end of last year, plastic dropped to just a 60 percent share and as paper and biodegradable plastics ramped up. But biodegradable plastics are not a silver bullet for fixing the world's plastic pollution problem — they often don't degrade properly in landfills, writes Bloomberg Opinion's Adam Minter. Researchers are still nailing down new formulas, like this bio-plastic made from seaweed eating organisms.

Low-cost grocer Aldi plans to overhaul its private-label packaging to make it all recyclable, reusable and compostable by 2025, but warns the trend toward grocery home delivery is pretty heavy on packaging. 

Burger King is now selling a plant-based burger. Separately, Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants said it would commit to purchasing chicken raised without medically important antibiotics by 2023 and updated its animal welfare policy following shareholder pressure. 

The Rockefeller Foundation's climate resilience program "100 Resilient Cities" — which supports cities hiring chief resilience officers — is disbanding.

Social

Citigroup ranked at the top of Arjuna Capital's gender pay gap corporate scorecard while most companies received "Fs", Arjuna Managing Partner Natasha Lamb told Bloomberg Television.

This week's "Equal Pay Day" was named "National Pay Inequality Awareness" Day before 1998. The name is less of a mouthful, but the gender pay gap is about the same. 

Google lost its Human Rights Campaign endorsement over an anti-gay "conversion therapy" app in its store. Then Google said it would pull the app. Separately, Google said this week that it would require benefits including parental leave, comprehensive health care, and a $15 per hour minimum wage for temporary staff and contractors who work for its vendors.

Investors have to guess at diversity metrics if firms don't say. While about 85 percent of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index report sustainability information today, only about 50 percent disclose diversity metrics to investors, Martina Cheung, president of S&P Global Market Intelligence, said at the Bloomberg Equality Summit in New York last week.

Governance

Amazon.com has attracted the most shareholder proposals of any U.S. company this year, writes Bloomberg Law's Andrea Vittorio. The company faces 15 proposals from employees and investors on topics from food waste and facial recognition technology to the environmental effects of warehouses and its headquarters’ impact on local housing. Energy companies Exxon and Chevron are the only ones that have come close to that amount. 

Bankrupt utility PG&E is said to be near a deal with investors for a new CEO and board overhaul. There's a big reason to get the California utility out of bankruptcy quickly: The clock is ticking toward the next wildfire season. 

The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing April 2 on conflicts of interest at proxy advisory firms. 

Note: Please send tips, suggestions and feedback to Emily Chasan at echasan1@bloomberg.net.

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