Welcome back, Shit Givers.

What a week! Lordy. It’s spring, which means I just ordered $500 of plant-protein shakes and belatedly committed to twice-weekly leg days. Mercy.

⚡️ Last week’s most popular Action Step was looking up your home’s fire and flood risk at Risk Factor.

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TOGETHER WITH NOTION

Over 20 million people and hundreds of thousands of teams around the world use Notion to organize their work and get more done.

Notion is the all-in-one workspace that combines notes, docs, project management, and wikis — and makes them all customizable.

Over 20 million people and teams (like ours!) around the world use it to collaborate, stay informed, and get more done together. If every person and business can tailor software to their problems, the world will be better at solving its problems — which would be pretty pretty great.

Notion’s mission is to make that a ubiquitous reality.

What We Can Do

⚡️ Submit your comment to keep Virginia in the very-successful — and very lucrative — RGGI

⚡️ Some folks need shelter. Some need water. Or food. The data says giving them agency — and straight cash — works better. Do that by donating to GiveDirectly.

⚡️ Health care is a universal human right. Setup a new monthly donation to the legendary Partners in Health to provide care first to those who need it most.

⚡️ You know what’s cool? A BILLION oysters. Plant them with the Billion Oyster Project and help clean up New York’s waters.

⚡️ There’s 1000 words about ESG investing below, so now’s a good time to find a bank that supports climate action AND your community with Bank for Good.

This isn’t complicated.

Alongside books, teenagers’ periods, and the statue of David, the notion of even considering “ESG” parameters in an investment fund has become one of 2023’s political footballs. Florida’s built a whole stupid political machine fighting it, the Senate passed an even stupider bill banning it, cueing up Green Joe’s first veto.

That’s not to say ESG is perfect.

In fact, it’s become pretty difficult to pin down exactly what the hell ESG is. That’s in part because ESG is a bunch of great ideas smashed together in one acronym. Drilling down, each those ideas — to more comprehensively and aggressively consider environmental, social, and governance standards, all vitally important and overdue — doesn’t really have a standardized, measurable anything. Which means formalizing them through ratings and the like is asking for trouble.

It’s problematic! Does a complete lack of standards but need to burnish reputations among retail investors set the stage for massive greenwashing? Of course!

Friends, many things can be true at once. Capitalism can make civilizations prosperous, drive innovation, and fund the arts. Capitalism also has a track record of being horrifically exploitative of ecosystems and people and self-regulation more or less does not work.

This is all to say: I am fully cognizant that a corporation’s traditional purpose is to create value for shareholders.

But that is exactly why considering even just the “E” in ESG isn’t putting “politics over profits”. It’s the opposite.

Since the beginning of time, two things have been true:

1. Bacteria are 10 steps ahead of us

2. We have been able to boil investing down to core very simple principles: capital conservation (protect what you’ve got) and capital appreciation (try to get more).

The mechanisms to execute those have become myriad, byzantine, and often automated, but the principles remain, because they are so easily understood.

Take a look around. Assess risk. Assess opportunities. Make your moves, try to keep them balanced out. Don’t be an ignoramus, don’t be greedy.

Now forget ESG, the label, all of it. Just consider the “don’t be an ignoramus” part.

As Morgan Housel described it, “Good investing is not necessarily about making good decisions. It’s about consistently not screwing up.”

In 2023 and beyond, an era when things are — shall we say — unpredictable, “screwing up” includes ignoring the real-world climate impacts already flooding our doorstep, and the millions of good people trying to build and participate in a capitalist system that isn’t, you know, monstrously extractive.

Pretending the “E” is anything but a new prism to assess risk so is dumb.

Ignoring that it may also be the most lucrative opportunity of all-time is even dumber.

1. Your fund, investments, and company should anticipate regulatory changes that are, yes, taking forever, but are probably inevitable

Regulation is a fickle mistress, often decades too late and sometimes — I know — overused.

But any well-run company should be able to put their finger to the wind and say “Yes, the times, they are a changing”, and methodically change their business practices to at least align with the general principles of future regulations.

And THAT is so when regulators do eventually, inevitably knock on their office door (I’m kidding, there’s no more offices), those same companies can smirk, knowing the hard work is already done. This is a result that typically makes shareholders very, very happy.

My children and I actually call this “doing a favor to your future self”, and whether we’re talking about — just once — depositing our Crocs in the shoe bin at the end of the night, or producing toothpaste without fucking forever chemicals, your future self will always be appreciative.

2. Your fund, investments, and company should anticipate consumer trends, especially among the youths

In case you missed it, the youths are all about saving the planet. “The planet”, you smirk again, “will be fine.” And you’re correct! Geology. So cool.

But think of it instead like “Saving the planet as they know it”, and then consider that these young people will live on our rock far longer than you or me, and you may finally understand why they reluctantly, and then forcefully rallied behind Green Joe. But also why they are now absolutely furious about the Willow Project, why second-hand clothing and furniture shops have exploded in popularity, why they keep suing fossil fuel companies wherever they can, and more.

Now, if you’re more of a “soft pants” person, “furious” may not seem like a consumer trend to you, but if I’m a company, and I’m looking around at successive generations demanding companies, goods, and services with a conscience, I would try to adjust accordingly by becoming one of those.

And then, assuming I could remember my password, I’d buy a bunch of TikTok ads to support my efforts. If Nutter Butter can do it, we can too.

Maybe, sure, no one could have predicted a Nutter Butter resurgence, but making it a company policy to make things the youths need, and out of materials that used to be a part of something else, assembled by nice people who enjoy a living wage and can take a day off when their own youths are sick is really a smart way to reliably stay in everyone’s good graces, and maybe even become something they make one of those dance videos about.

3. Your fund, investments, and company should seek access to new markets

I say this all of the time and still people shrug and it’s strange because “We have to electrify every automobile and building on the planet” doesn’t seem like small potatoes to me?

Nor the downstream markets of these?

Hello? Building a gazillion e-bikes? Building a bazillion EV chargers? Maintaining chargers? Software to manage chargers? Repairing water pipes? Wastewater monitoring? Zero carbon sneakers? Building storm gardens? Telehealth? EV manufacturing? Building four million new electrified homes? Sustainably harvested cardigans? Geothermal anywhere? Equitable, healthy urban design? Solar over reservoirs? Solar over farmland? Battery recycling, eventually? Pumped hydro? Heat pumps? Food waste? Induction stoves? Composting services? Have you seen all of the EV and battery money gushing into red states? Do you understand where that money is coming from? What about advertising and marketing and legal and financing and HR for all of these? Tap, tap, is this thing on?

Do people at your company not wear sneakers? Wouldn’t they like a nice pair made from sustainably-harvested tree bark, that could then be recycled into, I don’t know, pencils? Please don’t tell me you still make them wear the loafers. No more loafers.

Look, I ran the numbers on these new markets and the revenues totaled up to “All of the money.” Can I interest you in all of the money?

4. Your fund, investments, and company should reduce costs

This doesn’t even have to be that complicated.

You can buy clean energy from almost anywhere, virtually at least, and Energy Star appliances have been around since Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Other things that reduce costs and improve profits: stop wasting all that energy by using smart appliances, stop wasting food (there are plenty of startups that will pickup your company’s extra food or food waste to redistribute or compost), stop wasting paper and packaging materials (look at Walmart’s Zero Waste program).

Another idea! Healthier employees. Those are fun, even when we’re all working remotely, which can also save businesses money, and save transportation emissions too. This is great.

Lastly, insulation might not be sexy to you, but you wouldn’t believe how excited well-stuffed drywall and double-paned windows get me.

5. Your fund, investments, and company should protect your assets and investments against real-world climate impacts

Real-talk time!

Millions of historically marginalized people in “sacrifice zones” around the world have been suffering through not-fun climate impacts for decades, from water and air pollution to heat, drought, and flooding.

The IRA, which seems to be completely reinvigorating American industry and causing quite the kerfuffle across the pond, is an imperfect tradeoff of oodles of future profits in exchange for keeping those same sacrifice zones around for just a while longer, which really sucks.

The thing about many of those sacrifice zones is they’re either where fossil fuel infrastructure is and/or where climate impacts are most likely to come to life, affect, harm, or kill people, but also absolutely trash whatever’s within striking distance, like homes or businesses your bank loans to, or insurers, or whatever. It’s not great.

It’s also not super fair to people who’ve lived in those places for generations. Home is home, and it’s terrible to have to leave, but while many folks now know they’re being poisoned, others aren’t, and find themselves “underwater” on mortgages and insurance policies that simply won’t come due when the big one comes. We have to ask hard questions, and money talks.

Which is to say, continuing to support that infrastructure in any conceivable way is a big fat F+ in Managing Risk 101.

On the other hand, helping to fund or provide goods and services around four million new electrified homes in pedestrian-friendly urban areas and suburbs that should become urban areas, in places where climate adaptation is more manageable, is a nice way to make a buck.

And here’s where this all comes together.

The longer your company continues to invest in, loan to, subsidize, get energy from, or require products made from fossil fuel infrastructure, the more likely climate impacts will continue to grow, and the more your investments are at threat from, say, melting or drowning or both, to say nothing of the people who live and work there.

The longer it takes companies to adapt to upcoming regulatory changes — even literally just disclosure rules — the more likely climate impacts become.

The longer “trends” like sustainable manufacturing, EV’s, clean power, heat pumps and more take to become as common as Swiffers, the more likely climate impacts become.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Choosing to see these exposures not just as massive risks, but as opportunities to directly reduce the risks, for yourself and everyone else, can make your fund, your investments, and your company, a boat load of cash.

Ignore the performative bullshit, ignore the grifters. You are smarter than this. You know that market risks have always been real-world risks, reputational risks, and political risks, standing on each others’ shoulders in a trench coat, no matter what label we give them.

I’ve got a poster in my office that says “Work Hard and Be Nice to People”. It’s easier said than done, but it’s not difficult to understand.

Do the right thing with your money, which also happens to be the least risky thing, and maybe even the most profitable — ever.

— Quinn

News From My Notebook

Health & medicine

• The FDA recommends 2 RSV vaccines for older adults — a huge public health win

• We can learn a lot about how to eradicate homelessness from Houston and Helsinki

• The 988 suicide hotline is expanding LGBTQ services with 24/7 chat and text - huzzah!

• We really should celebrate the enormous — ENORMOUS — impact the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has had (and the thousands of people who fought for it)

• The best and worst American cities for allergy-sufferers

Climate

• The E-BIKE Act was reintroduced in Congress and I AM SO EXCITED

• The new season of Amy Westervelt’s incredible “Drilled” podcast is out, and this year it’s a cross-over with Damages, as they explore Guyana’s oil reserves, and how ExxonMobil is exploiting them

• I LOVE the “Third Act” protesters who came after after the big banks who fund fossil fuels

• The final rules on EV tax credits are coming — and everyone is both excited and annoyed

Food & water

• Can we make and popularize toilets that don’t use running water?

• California might ban Skittles (if this isn’t our most clicked on link, I don’t know what the point is)

• We desperately need a new economics of water

Beep Boop

• It’s just all moving so, so fast. The first ChatGPT plugins are here.

• Meanwhile, vocal deepfakes are already out of control

COVID

• A new Medicare designation may save the most vulnerable rural hospitals that are failing after COVID

• From Atul Gawande: The aftermath of a pandemic requires as much focus as the start

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