Robert J. Rubinstein

Last updated
Robert Jacques Rubinstein
Robert Rubinstein.jpg
Born (1952-02-09) 9 February 1952 (age 72)
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Alma mater Brooklyn College New York
OccupationSocial Entrepreneur
Known for Triple Bottom Line Investing
Website http://www.tbli.org

Robert J. Rubinstein (born 1952) is a social entrepreneur and the founder and driving force behind the TBLI (Triple Bottom Line Investing Group), [1] a group that specializes in environmental, social and governance, ESG and impact investing, using triple bottom line principles.

Contents

Early career

From 1974 to 1975 he worked on a kibbutz. From 1975 to 1978 he then worked for CIFAIR, a subsidiary of the Schlumberger oil exploration company, on oil rigs in France Iran and Texas. He also worked on Pillow Furniture in Amsterdam, following his father's footsteps as a tailor in working behind a sewing machine. He then worked for Third Wave Carriers and Creative handbook Europe before working between 1981 and 1998 as publishing editor of five Dutch magazines including Fiets Menu, and Source (the first European corporate social responsibility magazine).

Work for TBLI

He founded and is the creative thought leader behind TBLI in 1998 in Amsterdam. The work has expanded and now includes organizing TBLI Conference, the world's leading International Conference on Responsible investment, advising the European Commission (DG Social and Employment), and running a consultancy firm. Robert lectured for the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) after setting up their Sustainability program and still provides educational services through TBLI Academy.

He has been mentioned numerous times in the book, 'Partiality of Responsibility' (Ethics in Sustainability Consulting) written by Robert S. Earhart and published 2011.

In a 2019 interview with the Wealth and Society media platform, Rubenstein lamented the slow uptake in impact investments by the wealth management industry, "Private bankers seem to live in fear of their clients. They don’t lead their clients but follow them." [2]

Boards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triple bottom line</span> Accounting framework

The triple bottom line is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental and economic. Some organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. Business writer John Elkington claims to have coined the phrase in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlackRock</span> American investment company

BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. It is the world's largest asset manager, with $10 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock has 78 offices in 38 countries, and clients in 100 countries. BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with The Vanguard Group and State Street, it is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. As of 2023, BlackRock was ranked 229th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Reporting Initiative</span> International standards organization

The Global Reporting Initiative is an international independent standards organization that helps businesses, governments, and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rights, and corruption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socially responsible investing</span> Any investment strategy combining both financial performance and social/ethical impact.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) is any investment strategy which seeks to consider financial return alongside ethical, social or environmental goals. The areas of concern recognized by SRI practitioners are often linked to environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics. Impact investing can be considered a subset of SRI that is generally more proactive and focused on the conscious creation of social or environmental impact through investment. Eco-investing is SRI with a focus on environmentalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Elkington (business author)</span> British author, advisor and serial entrepreneur

John Elkington is an author, advisor and serial entrepreneur. He is an authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He has written and co-authored 20 books, including the Green Consumer Guide, Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, and The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Connect Tomorrow's Profits with Tomorrow's Bottom Line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van Lanschot Kempen</span>

Van Lanschot Kempen N.V. is a specialised, independent wealth manager that provides private banking, investment management and investment banking services to wealthy individuals and institutions. It is headquartered in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. With a history dating back to 1737, it is the oldest independent financial institution in the Netherlands and the Benelux and one of the oldest independent financial institutions in the world.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG), is a set of aspects, including environmental issues, social issues and corporate governance that can be considered in investing. Investing with ESG considerations is sometimes referred to as responsible investing or, in more proactive cases, impact investing.

Responsible Research Pte Ltd is an independent Environmental Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) research firm for global institutional asset owners and asset managers. Based in Singapore, Responsible Research analyses the ESG factors and regulatory landscapes that increasingly threaten portfolio returns in Asian markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund</span>

The Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund at Yale is an undergraduate-run socially responsible investment fund in the United States. Initially seeded with $50,000 from the Dwight Hall organization endowment, the fund is expected by the Dwight Hall Board of Directors and Trustees to grow to a $500,000 fundraising target. Managed by a committee of twenty undergraduate Yale College students, the fund makes use of traditional methods of socially responsible investing (SRI) to have a positive environmental and social impact while aiming to outperform standard investment benchmarks and maximize financial return.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institutional Shareholder Services</span> Proxy advisory firm

Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) is a proxy advisory firm. Hedge funds, mutual funds and similar organizations that own shares of multiple companies pay ISS to advise regarding share holder votes. As the leading firm in the industry, ISS commands a 48 percent market share as of 2021, with its nearest rival, Glass Lewis, holding a 42 percent market share.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainability Accounting Standards Board</span> Non-profit accounting standards organization

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) is a non-profit organization, founded in 2011 by Jean Rogers to develop sustainability accounting standards. Investors, lenders, insurance underwriters, and other providers of financial capital are increasingly attuned to the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors on the financial performance of companies, driving the need for standardized reporting of ESG data. Just as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have established International Financial Reporting Standards and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), respectively, which are currently used in the financial statements, SASB's stated mission “is to establish industry-specific disclosure standards across ESG topics that facilitate communication between companies and investors about financially material, decision-useful information. Such information should be relevant, reliable and comparable across companies on a global basis.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RepRisk</span> ESG Ratings Company in Switzerland

RepRisk AG is an environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) data science company based in Zurich, Switzerland, specializing in ESG and business-conduct risk research, and quantitative solutions.

Arabesque Partners is an Anglo-German investment management firm founded in 2013, with headquarters in London and a research hub in Frankfurt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic Reporting Initiative</span>

The Islamic Reporting Initiative (IRI) is an independent nonprofit organization leading the creation of the IRI Standard: a reporting standard for Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) based on Islamic principles and values. Its objective is to enable organizations to inclusively assess, report, verify and certify their ESG and philanthropic programs in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Philipp Aeby is the Chief Executive Officer of RepRisk, an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data science company based in Zürich, specializing in ESG and business conduct risk research and quantitative solutions. He has served in that capacity since 2010 and is also a Board Member of RepRisk. He previously held the position of Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner, when RepRisk was part of the environmental and social consultancy, Ecofact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NN Investment Partners</span> Dutch Asset Management Firm

NN Investment Partners was a Netherlands-based asset manager, with headquarters in The Hague and offices in 15 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The company was acquired by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, the asset management division of Goldman Sachs in April 2022.

Sustainable finance is the set of practices, standards, norms, regulations and products that pursue financial returns alongside environmental and/or social objectives. It is sometimes used interchangeably with Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) investing. However, many distinguish between ESG integration for better risk-adjusted returns and a broader field of sustainable finance that also includes impact investing, social finance and ethical investing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DWS Group</span> German investment management firm

The DWS Group commonly referred to as DWS, is a German asset management company. It previously operated as part of Deutsche Bank until 2018 where it became a separate entity through an initial public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is currently headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and is a constituent member of the SDAX index.

<i>Responsible Investment Brand Index</i> Scale to evaluate the European asset management industry

The Responsible Investment Brand Index (RIBI) is a scale to evaluate the global asset management industry on its ability to demonstrate its commitment to sustainable investment into their respective brands. The annual index was created in 2018 by Jean-Francois Hirschel and Markus Kramer.

Engine No. 1 is an American activist and impact-focused investment firm. It attracted attention with its campaign to replace four members of ExxonMobil's board of directors despite owning only 0.02% of the company's shares. The firm describes its investment approach as "active ownership", as it prefers to work with management instead of launching activist campaigns.

References

  1. "TBLI group presentation" (PDF).
  2. Rubinstein, Robert. "Private bankers are not leading their clients towards value-based investing". www.wealthandsociety.com. Retrieved 2023-08-15.