Banking on a storm: Natwest weathers first of AGM climate rows Banking Natwest faced a prickly time in its Edinburgh AGM and in this week’s column Samuel Norman looks at whether fun and games could be in store for its peers. Also on the agenda this week – Revolut heads for some Spanish sun. Natwest chair Rick Haythornthwaite suffered a thorny reception on Tuesday at the bank’s [...]
How procurement teams are responding to a complex risk environment Partner With supply chain disruption, rising prices and pressure to meet ESG and CSR aspirations, it’s more important than ever that organisations have control over how they spend budgets Procurement isn’t what it used to be. Once a behind-the-scenes function focused on reducing costs is now turning into a strategic powerhouse shaping how businesses respond to [...]
How the banking net zero fantasy ran out of gas Banking Over the past year, the world’s biggest banks‘ net zero enthusiasm has quickly and quietly dried up. Top lenders have backtracked, diluted or outright abandoned their environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies. The return of President Donald Trump has been highlighted as a turning point for green finance with firms across the financial industry turning sour [...]
Barclays follows HSBC in ditching net zero banks club August 1, 2025 Barclays has become the second London-based bank to exit the net zero banks club as the financial services industry continues to row back on climate policies. The FTSE 100 giant – which recorded a £1bn profit jump for the second quarter – said on Friday the UN-convened Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) “no longer has [...]
Businesses to pay £1.1bn in new packaging fees to councils July 26, 2025 Councils in England are set to receive a share of £1.1 billion in recycling funding taken from money charged to companies for the packaging they produce. Under the current system, local councils have footed the bill for disposing of items such as milk bottles, cereal boxes and soup tins using taxpayers’ money. But the new [...]
Back to Starbucks: How Starbucks coffee shops are revitalising community-first third places July 23, 2025 In bustling cities and quiet neighbourhoods alike, Starbucks familiar green siren often signals more than just a caffeine stop. It represents that essential ‘third place’ – a reliable comfort zone bridging the gap between home and work, a space for quiet focus, friendly catchups, or simply a moment’s pause. But in a world where connection [...]
Japan’s Transition Finance – A Roadmap For UK-Japan Collaboration On Net Zero July 22, 2025 Returning to London this week, I was struck not just by nostalgia but by the current heatwave – a powerful reminder that climate change can no longer be dismissed. From Tokyo to London, the growing frequency of record-breaking summers has become a shared reality, fuelling the urgent need for global action. The UK and Japan [...]
Starbucks expands Community Stores all over Europe, the Middle East and Africa January 2, 2025 This content was paid for by Starbucks, and produced in partnership with the City PM Commercial department. A term first coined by sociologist Ray Oldenberg, ‘third places’ are a space outside of a person’shome (first place) or work (second place), that is uniquely for socialising and buildingconnections. Humans are social creatures by nature, therefore these places [...]
King Henry Vlll vs Financial Literacy – Londoners speak out on Financial Education in Schools December 2, 2024 | Sponsored Today, the British public can recite the six wives of King Henry VIII – but if you ask about savings accounts, budgeting, career planning, or the support they had in their early years, many are left scratching their heads. A 2023 survey from EVERFI from Blackbaud UK revealed that 74% of teachers believe financial literacy [...]
ESG management platform FuturePlus closes £2.7M Seed raise October 8, 2024 | Sponsored The Sustainability Group, developers of sustainability management and ESG reporting platform FuturePlus (add Hyperlink: https://www.future-plus.co.uk/), has closed its latest round. Overfunding in this round, The Sustainability Group secured a 5x increase in its valuation in just under 3 years, taking its total investment to £2.7 million to date. The Sustainability Group will invest the funds [...]
