Chris McKnett: The investment logic for sustainability

Sustainability is pretty clearly one of the world's most important goals; but what groups can really make environmental progress in leaps and bounds? Chris McKnett makes the case that it's large institutional investors. He shows how strong financial data isn't enough, and reveals why investors need to look at a company's environmental, social and governance structures, too.

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[D_David]

As a business student I agree, sustainability offers companies opportunities to save costs, increase efficiency and gain new customers and suppliers. It is now the way forward!

[AriaKONG-lk]

One of the best TED talk ever. Truly powerful and every sentence is on-point:) Preparing for my interview for a Sustainable Investing role, and this video is beyond helpful. Thanks for sharing!

[srinivasanraghunathan]

An ardent advocate of sustainability, Chris McKnett asserts the importance of investing in green technologies and creating carbon neutral world. Citing various fastest growing investment companies, he argues this idea succinctly and concludes think about future that's where we going to spend rest of our life. Highly recommended talk.

[sidaksingh]

I love when he quoted Mark Twain. Let's build sustainability :)

[UnReal]

When McKennett talks about how State Street migrated their infrastructure to the cloud and reduced their real estate footprint, doesn't that reduction in real estate, savings and power get offloaded to the datacenter hosting their infrastructure?

[AustinSilvan]

This is so fantastic! What a great talk

[the_dugster]

Woah!  He said "Long-Term Returns!"

Is that still a thing?  I thought we were all just going Quarter-to-Quarter now.

[adamsmith]

Sustainability is code for “how do we violate our fiduciary duty and get our hands on the money & influence”

[ax]

Reasoning from the specific to the general. In this approach, you begin by Logical form
Main article: Logical form
Logic is generally considered formal when it analyzes and represents the form of any valid argument type. The form of an argument is displayed by representing its sentences in the formal grammar and symbolism of a logical language to make its content usable in formal inference. If one considers the notion of form too philosophically loaded, one could say that formalizing simply means translating English sentences into the language of logic.
This is called showing the logical form of the argument. It is necessary because indicative sentences of ordinary language show a considerable variety of form and complexity that makes their use in inference impractical. It requires, first, ignoring those grammatical features irrelevant to logic (such as gender and declension, if the argument is in Latin), replacing conjunctions irrelevant to logic (such as 'but') with logical conjunctions like 'and' and replacing ambiguous, or alternative logical expressions ('any', 'every', etc.) with expressions of a standard type (such as 'all', or the universal quantifier ∀).
Second, certain parts of the sentence must be replaced with schematic letters. Thus, for example, the expression all As are Bs shows the logical form common to the sentences all men are mortals, all cats are carnivores, all Greeks are philosophers and so on.
That the concept of form is fundamental to logic was already recognized in ancient times. Aristotle uses variable letters to represent valid inferences in Prior Analytics, leading Jan Łukasiewicz to say that the introduction of variables was 'one of Aristotle's greatest inventions'.[10] According to the followers of Aristotle (such as Ammonius), only the logical principles stated in schematic terms belong to logic, not those given in concrete terms. The concrete terms man', 'mortal, etc., are analogous to the substitution values of the schematic placeholders 'A', 'B', 'C', which were called the 'matter' (Greek 'hyle') of the inference.
The fundamental difference between modern formal logic and traditional, or Aristotelian logic, lies in their differing analysis of the logical form of the sentences they treat.
In the traditional view, the form of the sentence consists of (1) a subject (e.g., 'man') plus a sign of quantity ('all' or 'some' or 'no'); (2) the copula, which is of the form 'is' or 'is not'; (3) a predicate (e.g., 'mortal'). Thus: all men are mortal. The logical constants such as 'all', 'no' and so on, plus sentential connectives such as 'and' and 'or' were called 'syncategorematic' terms (from the Greek 'kategorei' – to predicate, and 'syn' – together with). This is a fixed scheme, where each judgment has an identified quantity and copula, determining the logical form of the sentence.
According to the modern view, the fundamental form of a simple sentence is given by a recursive schema, involving logical connectives, such as a quantifier with its bound variable, which are joined by juxtaposition to other sentences, which in turn may have logical structure.
The modern view is more complex, since a single judgement of Aristotle's system involves two or more logical connectives. For example, the sentence "All men are mortal" involves, in term logic, two non-logical terms "is a man" (here M) and "is mortal" (here D): the sentence is given by the judgement A(M, D). In predicate logic, the sentence involves the same two non-logical concepts, here analyzed as and, and the sentence is given by, involving the logical connectives for universal quantification and implication.
But equally, the modern view is more powerful. Medieval logicians recognized the problem of multiple generality, where Aristotelian logic is unable to satisfactorily render such sentences as "Some guys have all the luck", because both quantities "all" and "some" may be relevant in an inference, but the fixed scheme that Aristotle used allows only one to govern the inference. Just as linguists recognize recursive structure in natural languages, it appears that logic needs recursive structure.
Deductive and inductive reasoning, and retroductive inference
Deductive reasoning concerns what follows necessarily from given premises (if a, then b). However, inductive reasoning—the process of deriving a reliable generalization from observations—has sometimes been included in the study of logic. Similarly, it is important to distinguish deductive validity and inductive validity (called "cogency"). An inference is deductively valid if and only if there is no possible situation in which all the premises are true but the conclusion false. An inductive argument can be neither valid nor invalid; its premises give only some degree of probability, but not certainty, to its conclusion.
The notion of deductive validity can be rigorously stated for systems of formal logic in terms of the well-understood notions of semantics. Inductive validity on the other hand requires us to define a reliable generalization of some set of observations. The task of providing this definition may be approached in various ways, some less formal than others; some of these definitions may use mathematical models of probability. For the most part this discussion of logic deals only with deductive logic.
Retroductive inference is a mode of reasoning that Peirce proposed as operating over and above induction and deduction to "open up new ground" in processes of theorizing (1911, p. 2). He defines retroduction as a logical inference that allows us to "render comprehensible" some observations/events we perceive, by relating these back to a posited state of affairs that would help to shed light on the observations (Peirce, 1911, p. 2). He remarks that the "characteristic formula" of reasoning that he calls retroduction is that it involves reasoning from a consequent (any observed/experienced phenomena that confront us) to an antecedent (that is, a posited state of things that helps us to render comprehensible the observed phenomenon). Or, as he otherwise puts it, it can be considered as "regressing from a consequent to a hypothetical antecedent" (1911, p. 4).[11]
Some authors suggest that this mode of inference can be used within social theorizing to postulate social structures/mechanisms that explain the way that social outcomes arise in social life—and that in turn indicates that these structures or mechanisms are alterable with sufficient social will (and envisioning of alternatives). In other words, this logic is specifically liberative in that it can be used to point to transformative potential in our way of organizing our social existence by our re-examining/exploring the deep structures that generate outcomes (and life chances for people). In her book on New Racism (2010) Norma Romm offers an account of various interpretations of what can be said to be involved in retroduction as a form of inference and how this can also be seen to be linked to a style of theorizing (and caring) where processes of knowing (which she sees as dialogically rooted) are linked to social justice projects.[12]
Consistency, validity, soundness, and completeness
In Europe, logic was first developed by Aristotle.[16] Aristotelian logic became widely accepted in science and mathematics and remained in wide use in the West until the early 19th century.[17] Aristotle's system of logic was responsible for the introduction of hypothetical syllogism, [18] temporal modal logic, [19][20] and inductive logic, [21] as well as influential terms such as terms, predicables, syllogisms and propositions. In Europe during the later medieval period, major efforts were made to show that Aristotle's ideas were compatible with Christian faith. During the High Middle Ages, logic became a main focus of philosophers, who would engage in critical logical analyses of philosophical arguments, often using variations of the methodology of scholasticism. In 1323, William of Ockham's influential Summa Logicae was released. By the 18th century, the structured approach to arguments had degenerated and fallen out of favour, as depicted in Holberg's satirical play Erasmus Montanus.
The Chinese logical philosopher Gongsun Long (ca. 325–250 BC) proposed the paradox "One and one cannot become two, since neither becomes two."[22] In China, the tradition of scholarly investigation into logic, however, was repressed by the Qin dynasty following the legalist philosophy of Han Feizi.
In India, innovations in the scholastic school, called Nyaya, continued from ancient times into the early 18th century with the Navya-Nyaya school. By the 16th century, it developed theories resembling modern logic, such as Gottlob Frege's "distinction between sense and reference of proper names" and his "definition of number, " as well as the theory of "restrictive conditions for universals" anticipating some of the developments in modern set theory.[23] Since 1824, Indian logic attracted the attention of many Western scholars, and has had an influence on important 19th-century logicians such as Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, and George Boole.[24] In the 20th century, Western philosophers like Stanislaw Schayer and Klaus Glashoff have explored Indian logic more extensively.
The syllogistic logic developed by Aristotle predominated in the West until the mid-19th century, when interest in the foundations of mathematics stimulated the development of symbolic logic (now called mathematical logic). In 1854, George Boole published An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, introducing symbolic logic and the principles of what is now known as Boolean logic. In 1879, Gottlob Frege published Begriffsschrift, which inaugurated modern logic with the invention of quantifier notation. From 1910 to 1913, Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell published Principia Mathematica[8] on the foundations of mathematics, attempting to derive mathematical truths from axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic. In 1931, Gödel raised serious problems with the foundationalist program and logic ceased to focus on such issues.
The development of logic since Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein had a profound influence on the practice of philosophy and the perceived nature of philosophical problems (see Analytic philosophy), and Philosophy of mathematics. Logic, especially sentential logic, is implemented in computer logic circuits and is fundamental to computer science. Logic is commonly taught by university philosophy departments, often as a compulsory discipline.
Main article: Aristotelian logic
The Organon was Aristotle's body of work on logic, with the Prior Analytics constituting the first explicit work in formal logic, introducing the syllogistic.[25] The parts of syllogistic logic, also known by the name term logic, are the analysis of the judgements into propositions consisting of two terms that are related by one of a fixed number of relations, and the expression of inferences by means of syllogisms that consist of two propositions sharing a common term as premise, and a conclusion that is a proposition involving the two unrelated terms from the premises.
Aristotle's work was regarded in classical times and from medieval times in Europe and the Middle East as the very picture of a fully worked out system. However, it was not alone: the Stoics proposed a system of propositional logic that was studied by medieval logicians. Also, the problem of multiple generality was recognised in medieval times. Nonetheless, problems with syllogistic logic were not seen as being in need of revolutionary solutions.
Today, some academics claim that Aristotle's system is generally seen as having little more than historical value (though there is some current interest in extending term logics), regarded as made obsolete by the advent of propositional logic and the predicate calculus. Others use Aristotle in argumentation theory to help develop and critically question argumentation schemes that are used in artificial intelligence and legal arguments.
Propositional logic (sentential logic)
Main article: Propositional calculus
A propositional calculus or logic (also a sentential calculus) is a formal system in which formulae representing propositions can be formed by combining atomic propositions using logical connectives, and in which a system of formal proof rules establishes certain formulae as "theorems".
Predicate logic
Main article: Predicate logic
Predicate logic is the generic term for symbolic formal systems such as first-order logic, second-order logic, many-sorted logic, and infinitary logic.
Predicate logic provides an account of quantifiers general enough to express a wide set of arguments occurring in natural language. Aristotelian syllogistic logic specifies a small number of forms that the relevant part of the involved judgements may take. Predicate logic allows sentences to be analysed into subject and argument in several additional ways—allowing predicate logic to solve the problem of multiple generality that had perplexed medieval logicians.
The development of predicate logic is usually attributed to Gottlob Frege, who is also credited as one of the founders of analytical philosophy, but the formulation of predicate logic most often used today is the first-order logic presented in Principles of Mathematical Logic by David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann in 1928. The analytical generality of predicate logic allowed the formalisation of mathematics, drove the investigation of set theory, and allowed the development of Alfred Tarski's approach to model theory. It provides the foundation of modern mathematical logic.
Frege's original system of predicate logic was second-order, rather than first-order. Second-order logic is most prominently defended (against the criticism of Willard Van Orman Quine and others) by George Boolos and Stewart Shapiro.
Modal logic
Main article: Modal logic
In languages, modality deals with the phenomenon that sub-parts of a sentence may have their semantics modified by special verbs or modal particles. For example, "We go to the games" can be modified to give "We should go to the games", and "We can go to the games"" and perhaps "We will go to the games". More abstractly, we might say that modality affects the circumstances in which we take an assertion to be satisfied.
Aristotle's logic is in large parts concerned with the theory of non-modalized logic. Although, there are passages in his work, such as the famous sea-battle argument in De Interpretatione § 9, that are now seen as anticipations of modal logic and its connection with potentiality and time, the earliest formal system of modal logic was developed by Avicenna, whom ultimately developed a theory of "temporally modalized" syllogistic.[26]
While the study of necessity and possibility remained important to philosophers, little logical innovation happened until the landmark investigations of Clarence Irving Lewis in 1918, who formulated a family of rival axiomatizations of the alethic modalities. His work unleashed a torrent of new work on the topic, expanding the kinds of modality treated to include deontic logic and epistemic logic. The seminal work of Arthur Prior applied the same formal language to treat temporal logic and paved the way for the marriage of the two subjects. Saul Kripke discovered (contemporaneously with rivals) his theory of frame semantics, which revolutionised the formal technology available to modal logicians and gave a new graph-theoretic way of looking at modality that has driven many applications in computational linguistics and computer science, such as dynamic logic.
Computational logic
Main article: Logic in computer science
Logic cut to the heart of computer science as it emerged as a discipline: Alan Turing's work on the Entscheidungsproblem followed from Kurt Gödel's work on the incompleteness theorems, and the notion of general purpose computers that came from this work was of fundamental importance to the designers of the computer machinery in the 1940s.
In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers predicted that when human knowledge could be expressed using logic with mathematical notation, it would be possible to create a machine that reasons, or artificial intelligence. This was more difficult than expected because of the complexity of human reasoning. In logic programming, a program consists of a set of axioms and rules. Logic programming systems such as Prolog compute the consequences of the axioms and rules in order to answer a query.
Today, logic is extensively applied in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Science, and these fields provide a rich source of problems in formal and informal logic. Argumentation theory is one good example of how logic is being applied to artificial intelligence. The ACM Computing Classification System in particular regards:
Section F.3 on Logics and meanings of programs and F.4 on Mathematical logic and formal languages as part of the theory of computer science: this work covers formal semantics of programming languages, as well as work of formal methods such as Hoare logic
Boolean logic as fundamental to computer hardware: particularly, the system's section B.2 on Arithmetic and logic structures, relating to operatives AND, NOT, and OR;
Many fundamental logical formalisms are essential to section I.2 on artificial intelligence, for example modal logic and default logic in Knowledge representation formalisms and methods, Horn clauses in logic programming, and description logic.
Furthermore, computers can be used as tools for logicians. For example, in symbolic logic and mathematical logic, proofs by humans can be computer-assisted. Using automated theorem proving the machines can find and check proofs, as well as work with proofs too lengthy to write out by hand.
Bivalence and the law of the excluded middle
Main article: Principle of bivalence
The logics discussed above are all "bivalent" or "two-valued"; that is, they are most naturally understood as dividing propositions into true and false propositions. Non-classical logics are those systems that reject bivalence.
Hegel developed his own dialectic logic that extended Kant's transcendental logic but also brought it back to ground by assuring us that "neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract 'either–or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself".[33]
In 1910, Nicolai A. Vasiliev extended the law of excluded middle and the law of contradiction and proposed the law of excluded fourth and logic tolerant to contradiction.[34] In the early 20th century Jan Łukasiewicz investigated the extension of the traditional true/false values to include a third value, "possible", so inventing ternary logic, the first multi-valued logic.[citation needed]
Logics such as fuzzy logic have since been devised with an infinite number of "degrees of truth", represented by a real number between 0 and 1.[35]
Intuitionistic logic was proposed by L.E.J. Brouwer as the correct logic for reasoning about mathematics, based upon his rejection of the law of the excluded middle as part of his intuitionism. Brouwer rejected formalisation in mathematics, but his student Arend Heyting studied intuitionistic logic formally, as did Gerhard Gentzen. Intuitionistic logic is of great interest to computer scientists, as it is a constructive logic and can be applied for extracting verified programs from proofs.
Modal logic is not truth conditional, and so it has often been proposed as a non-classical logic. However, modal logic is normally formalised with the principle of the excluded middle, and its relational semantics is bivalent, so this inclusion is disputable.
"Is logic empirical?"
Main article: Is logic empirical?
What is the epistemological status of the laws of logic? What sort of argument is appropriate for criticizing purported principles of logic? In an influential paper entitled "Is logic empirical?"[36] Hilary Putnam, building on a suggestion of W.V. Quine, argued that in general the facts of propositional logic have a similar epistemological status as facts about the physical universe, for example as the laws of mechanics or of general relativity, and in particular that what physicists have learned about quantum mechanics provides a compelling case for abandoning certain familiar principles of classical logic: if we want to be realists about the physical phenomena described by quantum theory, then we should abandon the principle of distributivity, substituting for classical logic the quantum logic proposed by Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann.[37]
Another paper of the same name by Sir Michael Dummett argues that Putnam's desire for realism mandates the law of distributivity.[38] Distributivity of logic is essential for the realist's understanding of how propositions are true of the world in just the same way as he has argued the principle of bivalence is. In this way, the question, "Is logic empirical?" can be seen to lead naturally into the fundamental controversy in metaphysics on realism versus anti-realism.
Implication: strict or material?
Main article: Paradox of entailment
It is obvious that the notion of implication formalised in classical logic does not comfortably translate into natural language by means of "if… then…", due to a number of problems called the paradoxes of material implication.
The first class of paradoxes involves counterfactuals, such as If the moon is made of green cheese, then 2+2=5, which are puzzling because natural language does not support the principle of explosion. Eliminating this class of paradoxes was the reason for C. I. Lewis's formulation of strict implication, which eventually led to more radically revisionist logics such as relevance logic.
The second class of paradoxes involves redundant premises, falsely suggesting that we know the succedent because of the antecedent: thus "if that man gets elected, granny will die" is materially true since granny is mortal, regardless of the man's election prospects. Such sentences violate the Gricean maxim of relevance, and can be modelled by logics that reject the principle of monotonicity of entailment, such as relevance logic.
Tolerating the impossible
Main article: Paraconsistent logic
Hegel was deeply critical of any simplified notion of the Law of Non-Contradiction. It was based on Leibniz's idea that this law of logic also requires a sufficient ground to specify from what point of view (or time) one says that something cannot contradict itself. A building, for example, both moves and does not move; the ground for the first is our solar system and for the second the earth. In Hegelian dialectic, the law of non-contradiction, of identity, itself relies upon difference and so is not independently assertable.
Closely related to questions arising from the paradoxes of implication comes the suggestion that logic ought to tolerate inconsistency. Relevance logic and paraconsistent logic are the most important approaches here, though the concerns are different: a key consequence of classical logic and some of its rivals, such as intuitionistic logic, is that they respect the principle of explosion, which means that the logic collapses if it is capable of deriving a contradiction. Graham Priest, the main proponent of dialetheism, has argued for paraconsistency on the grounds that there are in fact, true contradictions.[39]
Rejection of logical truth
The philosophical vein of various kinds of skepticism contains many kinds of doubt and rejection of the various bases on which logic rests, such as the idea of logical form, correct inference, or meaning, typically leading to the conclusion that there are no logical truths. Observe that this is opposite to the usual views in philosophical skepticism, where logic directs skeptical enquiry to doubt received wisdoms, as in the work of Sextus Empiricus.

[mryellow]

He could have talked to "both sides" better by leaving out climate change completely. Instead talking about sustainable investment in a finite world with greater competition, no need for CO2 or population graph, anyone can find faults with those and discard the rest of the talk.

[DiogoVKersting]

Why is Dexter givin a speech in TED?
haha

[akdomun]

Interesting and something to watch out for.

[TheBfanboy]

"Yes, this is correlation and not causation, but it does illustrate that environmental leadership is compatible with good returns." Yes, but if google starts throwing money into the Grand Canyon and still do better than other tech companies, that doesn't mean throwing the money in the Grand Canyon is a wise financial decision.

[DaviFera]

Does anyone knows which were the subset of companies with the best ESG performance that he was comparing with the S&P 500?

Thank you!

[anshikasingh]

from someone watching this in 2020 to people commented 6 years earlier...what he said wasn't a joke... was it?

[limeconsultant]

thank you will try to promote and suggest Financial Investment clients to incorporate ESG. good idea even for the sustainability of the company itself

[Chopaholic]

Yo definitely agree with the focus on building the egg then using it for targeted investments. Thanks for the talk bud!

[JohannesMarliem]

Great TED talk! Sustainability and business can co-exist beautifully!

[madlinezhang]

Sustainability is a great thing, but I love how he tells us that this will encourage capitalism and unchecked globalization.

[RepublicVEVO]

Could it be that the financial growth of green and sustainable technologies is because people have become enraptured with the idea of making a difference in the environment they live in? Perhaps in wake of the immense increase in public interest since global warming was popularized?