Purpose, profit and ESG with Alex Edmans

Emily Farrimond is joined by Alex Edmans Professor of Finance at London Business School to deep dive the interplay between purpose, profit and ESG. We have a jam packed two episodes where we discuss what focused purpose really means, why you don’t need to tick all 17 SDGs, and whether we need to challenge the concept of green investments. With so much buzz around ESG, we also delve into whether ESG is value accretive or value depletive, the trade-offs on climate and ESG decisions, and the importance of skillset diversity in ESG roles, amongst other things.

Listen to our podcast:

Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Spotify   and Amazon music

View a transcript of part one

View a transcript of part two

About our host:

Emily Farrimond, ESG & Sustainability lead, Baringa

Responsible for building the ESG & Sustainability practice for Financial Services at Baringa, Emily is passionate about creating a more sustainable world.

As a trusted advisor to the C-suite, Emily helps shape and deliver critical change initiatives, including setting ESG and net zero strategies, creating credible transition plans, and the avoidance of greenwashing.

About our guest:

Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance, London Business School

Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. He has a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. Alex’s book, “Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit”, was a Financial Times Book of the Year for 2020. He has won 24 teaching awards at Wharton and LBS and was named Professor of the Year by Poets & Quants in 2021.