At a Financial Times Moral Money conference on May 20, 2022, Mr. Stuart Kirk, Global Head of Responsible Investment at HSBC Asset Management, and a former journalist at the FT for 10 years (which he calls “the happiest of my professional career”) gave a talk titled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk.” In doing so he fulfilled American artist, film director, and producer Andy Warhol’s observation that “”In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” Well, in this case, 16:25 to be precise.

I’ve watched Mr. Kirk’s speech several times. He is a gifted public speaker and I genuinely enjoyed listening to him. Mr. Kirk’s poised, articulate, and well-delivered talk was done with nary a bump or a “hmmm” or a “you know.” At the very beginning he reveals a sardonic wit and his direction of travel by saying, “I do have a beard which is my one sop to responsible investing.” It’s a fulsome gray and well-trimmed beard which nicely complements his white shirt and dark blue jacket and clean-shaven bald head. Being a gray bearded fellow myself (although admittedly much older) I was pleased to hear that beards are associated with sustainable investing. He also proudly boasts that he has never used the word “journey” in speech or writing. I’ll take his word that he’s now done so for the first time and say I’m impressed that one can have such certainty about their past linguistic practices. And I respect his wish to take “a very financial and investment view.”

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