Also: Strike pains, insider trading, and FTX’s “family business.”
Good morning, Peter Vanham here in Eclepens, Switzerland, filling in for Alan.
The endless parade of United Nations meetings in New York this week could be forgiven if the UN delivered on its mandate to improve relations between its 193 member states. But as its chief, Antonio Guterres acknowledged yesterday, that is not happening. “Our world is becoming unhinged,” he said, “and we seem incapable of coming together to respond.”
It didn’t help that President Joe Biden’s speech at the UN yesterday lacked the punch an American president typically exudes on that stage. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine sat in the audience while Biden spoke of the West’s unwavering support of Ukraine, but more telling was the absence of heads of state from the UN Security Council’s other “permanent five” members: China, the United Kingdom, France, and, of course, Russia itself.
Yet it would be a mistake to write off the UN entirely. The body has made great strikes in enlisting the private sector. It was the UN, after all, that came up with “environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions.” The UN and its “conference of the parties” (COP) on climate and biodiversity also served as the starting point for many private sector frameworks and commitments on climate- and nature-related disclosures.
On climate, as Alan noted yesterday, recent progress has stalled. But on nature and biodiversity, momentum is building. This week, the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures released its recommendations for companies to “report and act on nature-related dependencies.” In simple terms, the TNFD helps companies ensure their work doesn’t deplete freshwater or destroy forests, for example. It is the “nature” equivalent of climate disclosures, Claire Lund, global vice president of sustainability at pharmaceutical giant GSK, an early TNFD adopter, told me yesterday.
Not everyone will back the disclosures, but several of the dozens of companies that support TNFD, including GSK, will start reporting them in their financial accounting in 2026. (Holcim, the world’s largest construction materials company whose site I’m visiting today in Eclépens, is another that will follow suit.) It will be one way the UN agenda lives on despite geopolitical discord.
More news below.
Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham
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Ford avoids more strike pain
Auto giant Ford reached a provisional deal with workers at its Canadian unit during late night negotiations on Tuesday. The Canadian autoworkers union Unifor, which had been pushing for better pension benefits and pay increases amid the EV transition, tentatively agreed to a three-year national labor contract. The United Auto Workers' strike against Ford (and General Motors and Stellantis) in the U.S., meanwhile, is ongoing. Bloomberg
Former Congressman jailed
Ex-Indiana Congressman Stephen Buyer, a Republican, was sentenced to 22 months in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of insider trading. Buyer served as a lawmaker from 1993 to 2011 before leaving Congress to work as a consultant to private firms. Last year, he was indicted for allegedly using inside information to buy $1.5 million in stocks in schemes that took place in 2018 and 2019. He was convicted in March. NBC News
FTX sues founder’s parents
The bankruptcy estate of FTX has sued the parents of disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried in a 63-page complaint that claims FTX labeled itself a “family business.” Allan Joseph Bankman, a top tax law professor at Stanford Law School and Bankman-Fried’s father, is accused of covering up allegations that would have exposed fraud at the crypto exchange. He and Barbara Fried, the FTX founder’s mother, were also accused of siphoning millions of dollars from the crypto empire for “their own personal benefit.” Lawyers for Bankman and Fried have called the claims "completely false." Fortune
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Deloitte Holiday Retail Forecast Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 3.5% and 4.6% in 2023, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast. So, how much can retail companies expect consumers to spend this holiday season? Read here.
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