what would it be?

You could call it Conscious Capitalism.

The so-called ESG, environmental social governance space,

is exploding in scale.

It's currently reckoned to be worth more than $31tn, $32tn,

which is dramatically higher than it was a decade ago.

Increasingly, boards and executives are realising they

cannot afford to ignore what they used to call

"externalities," i.e.

issues like climate change, social factors

like income inequality, and a whole range

of governance questions.

Companies and big investment groups

are saying, actually, what we're interested in is making

sure we avoid harm to ourselves, either reputational harm

or actual asset value harm in the sense

that the value of our assets in our portfolio falls say,

due to climate change.

Secondly, you got a change underway

in the financial markets where increasingly investors

are saying: we want more than just profits.

And thirdly, policymakers around the world from city governments

all the way up to national governments and multilateral

organisations like the United Nations are saying we

can't rely on taxpayers' money, public sector finance,

to fund our development projects.

We need to reach out to the private sector, too.

Some companies can see that's actually

good business opportunities in the whole ESG

responsible business space.

There is such a wealth of demand from investors

for green products that actually demand outstrips supply.

That may not last, but right now it shows that companies are not

being penalised for being green.

Typically, whenever you see innovation in finance

you get a flurry of innovation at a grassroots and lots

of little experiments all over the place that pop up

in a very fragmented way.

But then, over time, the industry grows up and you begin

to get more clear cut structures for framing this new asset

class, labelling it, auditing it,

and actually imposing more transparency and consistency.

Inevitably, some people might say

the whole thing is full of green-washing and hypocrisy

and it's ridiculous.

However, no one shouldn't lose sight of the fundamental point

that some investors are seeking to use their money

to try and do good and to think about the consequences of where

their money is going.

And that is a very good thing indeed.