The beginning of the year brought a glimmer of hope with strong equity markets, falling energy prices and easing inflation. Global growth forecasts improved as China re-opened, and the World Economic Forum identified climate change as the most pressing risk to global growth in the next decade.

October saw rising inflation, high interest rates and continued volatility of the pound, culminating in the appointment of both a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor. We wait to see how they intend to manage the economy in the planned Autumn statement later in November.

Rathbone Greenbank are delighted to be an official event partner for Good Money Week – the annual event of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF).

The Rathbone Greenbank engagement review represents a small snapshot of our engagement activity in 2021 and our plans for 2022.

Short-term and long-term performance. In this month’s Market Update we look at the recent high performance of companies operating in the fossil fuel sector, plus the negative and positive impact on climate change targets as the global supply of energy from renewable sources falls short of meeting global demand.

Over the past 18 months, the importance of effective health care has been brought into sharp focus. However, today two billion people cannot access the medicine they need due to price and accessibility among other factors.