The Great Divide – Finding opportunities in false trade-offs

Integrated Investing Requires Integrative Thinking

The Principles for Responsible Investment Secretariat recently published guidance for investors on managing risks arising from interactions between climate change and local water supplies and the resulting impacts on the agricultural supply chain. This sophisticated approach to managing risks is illustrative of how academics, civil society groups, beneficiaries and policy makers are increasingly are challenging asset owners and their managers to … Read more Integrated Investing Requires Integrative Thinking

Investors Must be Part of the Solution to the Integration Challenge

Financial institutions, including credit unions, banks, foundations and pension funds, are paying increasing attention to the societal impacts of their lending and investment decision-making. Motivations and strategies for doing so range from long-term investors seeking to manage societal and environmental risks that adversely impact their investment portfolios and to identify new sources of value, to … Read more Investors Must be Part of the Solution to the Integration Challenge

Diversity and Meritocracy: What Tradeoff?

As of January 2015, most publicly listed companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange are required to disclose details of their board diversity policy or to explain why they do not have a policy. The ‘comply or explain’ regulation reflects the latest in a spate of regulations introduced across global financial markets to encourage gender diversity … Read more Diversity and Meritocracy: What Tradeoff?

Work

My research focuses on the governance of long-term investment decision-making and social finance. My knowledge of sustainable investment and social finance has developed through my research at Purpose Capital, the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation and the University of Oxford. Recent work includes examining the opportunities and strategies for retail impact investing in the Canadian credit union sector, assessing the … Read more Work

Investing and Social Finance

Financial institutions play a key role in shaping our societal, economic and financial systems. Like many others, I am interested in how to ensure that this impact is positive for a diverse range of individuals, groups and sectors in society. I believe that we must embrace the ambiguity and diversity in the financial world in order to make … Read more Investing and Social Finance

Re-frames

Traversing the great divides in society and the economy requires skillfully riding on the backs of conflicts and differences in interpretations, rather than seeking to resolve them. This requires re-framing economic trade-offs in order to uncover innovative solutions that celebrate diversity and ambiguity. Topics Sharing Economy … Read more Re-frames

About

About

Traversing the Great Divide

Traversing the great divides in society and the economy requires skillfully riding on the backs of conflicts and differences in interpretations, rather than seeking to resolve them. This website is dedicated to exposing false economic trade-offs and highlighting innovative solutions that celebrate diversity. The aim is to encourage financial decision-makers and their regulators to acknowledge ambiguity and recognize its value for investment decision-making and analysis.

The Great Divide Trail traverses 1200 km of the Canadian Rockies, extending the length of the border between the Province of British Columbia and the Province of Alberta. The trail was first proposed in the 1960s by a group of outdoors enthusiasts, but to date it remains a work in progress, a patchwork of unmarked trail systems funded by regional governments and private donations. Its use remains contested by competing interests among industry and motorized recreational vehicle users. At the same time, the trail’s existence depends on these conflicting interests, as it is joined together by logging roads, motorized vehicle trails, seismic lines and railway beds. For those willing to embrace uncertainty, the trail provides a navigable path through one of the largest continental divides in the world.

*I have yet to traverse the GDT. The photos on this site are my own, taken in Mount Robson Provincial Park, Jasper and surrounding areas.