Divestment or engagement? New research on innovation in the energy sector. With Lauren Cohen (Harvard Business School) and Leslie Gent (Coutts)

Why you should watch: A new and important NBER working paper, by Cohen, Gurun and Nguyen, takes a long hard look at innovation in the energy industry - and concludes that divestment campaigns targeted at fossil fuel companies may not just be ineffective. They may actually be penalizing companies that are making the biggest commitments to 'green' innovation. Using the number (and quality) of patents as a proxy, the paper concludes that 'the quantity and quality of green patenting is higher for energy firms' - even though 'those firms are precisely those to which capital is often restricted by mandates and campaigns'. Important - and counter-intuitive.

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (CSFI) and Jane Fuller (CSFI)

Panellists:

Lauren Cohen is LE Simmons Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and a research associate at the NBER. He is also an advisor to the SEC and to the US Patent and Trademark Office. He has a PhD from Chicago.

Leslie Gent is a managing director and Head of Responsible Investment at Coutts in London. She is also a Trustee of the Coutts Foundation. Previously, she worked with Charles Schwab in San Francisco. She was educated at the University of Saskatchewan.

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