#pokefinance

As a financial advisor (aka professional bank pimp), it seems the concept of “Sustainable Investing” has really taken hold this past year, despite being around for quite a few years. I was pondering new investment ideas and recommendations (so they can sit patiently on my desk waiting for my boss’s approval) and noticed that most of them are ESG-focused. Of course.

As a Millennial (like that means anything), imagining that your investments might go towards helping someone or doing some good for the world is a key motivation. I don’t mind even sacrificing some additional returns, if that means my money is being put to good use. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a lot of like-minded people as Clients, so raw returns still dominate the investment sphere. But we’ll get there!

I want to explain a bit what it is we call ESG – Environmental, Social and (Corporate) Governance Investing. It is a very studied and elaborated research topic that has become so convoluted that virtually any company can be qualified as ESG-passable (sigh). A company with a high ESG score means it Excels in all or one of these three key areas. The ESGest of them all, try to integrate in their daily practices some of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which range from ending world hunger to reducing inequality, climate action, etc.

I’ve also been replaying Pokémon Platinum (ayyy you see where this is going don’t you?) – probably not, since you haven’t read my previous newsletters. But anyway.

Sinnoh could really benefit a lot from some ESG-focused investing, especially in the Environmental aspect of it. The first thing that popped into my mind was the Fuego Ironworks. No, it is not related to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest runner-up’s song of choice, but rather a big warehouse-like facility harboring a huge furnace in the center of it all. If you manage to get past the arrow-one-direction-thingies leftover from the renovation of the Viridian Gym, you eventually reach this massive incinerator. Ok, so, fossil fuels are a big no-no in the battle for climate change. Hydrogen plants and renewable energies trump coal mines and similar facilities. So I would take that big chunk of investor money and shut down the Fuego Ironworks. I know what you’re thinking – WHERE ELSE AM I GONNA CATCH A POKÉMON WITH FLAME BODY THIS EARLY IN THE GAME so I can hatch that perf Togepi (because what else) – but fret not, those Magmar can relocate to Stark Mountain. But uh… maybe I’d try to throw a couple of Slugma near the Lost Tower or something, so you can still hatch them eggs early on. Need a motherboard-frying Magnemite? You can now catch them in Iron Island! Have fun.

But shutting down a massive energy-producing (assumption here assumption there la la la) facility like this is BOUND to have an effect on the residents, especially for the people who live in the nearby towns – I mean where else are Floaroma residents supposed to work? Smell the flowers in the floaroma medow (which is somehow located DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO THE IRONWORKS but ok)? Serve as night guides to wandering girls and their Chansey in Eterna Forest? Or sweat away in the Valley Windworks?

Huh? Windworks? Like an actual wind power farm? Grab ‘em Pachirisu and let’s go!

Seriously, the Valley Windworks would be exactly where my inflows would go. From any residual money gathered from the sale of the Ironworks, my investors could provide a massive overhaul of the windworks. We could bring specialists in from Hoenn’s Weather Institute and build a ton more Teletubbies (my boyfriend’s endearing nickname for those huge fan-thingies). Maybe we could even expand to hydraulics, what with that huge river flowing alongside the facility. Just imagine the drifloon! One for each doom-bearing child.

Ok great! We’ve managed to take action by remodeling the energy supply from the area, effectively diminishing its carbon emissions while preserving the citizens’ quality of life. For me that qualified as a big E investment! And maybe our work wouldn’t stop here, if you’ve got a few cents in your pocket imagine if we could harness the energy from Mt. Coronet! With cares not to disturb any dimensional beings or pseudo-gods. Just a thought.

Miss Moving On is a song by Fifth Harmony. Next we have the “Social” aspect of ESG investing. This would be the category where you would find the community-improving or demographic and populational aiding aspects. Infrastructures, accessibility, any and every thing that could better a population’s daily routine and ensure its sustainability for generations to come. So which issues plague Sinnoh residents? I can think of a few – weird people with bowl-shaped haircuts stealing Pokémon, people-swallowing marshes, freakin’ SELFDESTRUCTING ROCKS (née Geodude) and the occasional time/space distortions from the odd attempt at creating new universes.

Well let’s not go overboard with our intervention, we cannot hope to solve ALL problems plaguing our beloved residents. Let’s start with a simple issue. Little Timmy loves everything related to boats. Boats boats boats and sometimes ships – so he loves going to Sunyshore City, to see the Lighthouse. He goes whenever he can - he swears one time he even had a date with a girl who was visiting with her Ampharos! Legend has it for him it was love at first sight. But she had a ship to catch, bound for her hometown region. So they agreed to meet that very night, before she departed. She waited and waited, but Timmy never came. With tears in her eyes, the girl was last seen boarding the ship, never to return…

Dang it Timmy! Why did you do that?

Well… the thing is, Timmy tried. Timmy lives in Solaceon town and works for the local newspaper. So on that afternoon, after collecting his heart scales, he cheerfully got on his bike and began pedaling, heading to meet his lover. But there is no direct route from Solaceon to Sunyshore – Solaceon is pretty much isolated where it stands, one has to either go North trough Veilstone or face the marshes of the south through Pastoria, to finally traverse route 222 to the city.

Since a bike would sink pretty hard on the bog, Timmy rode North. He got drenched in rain before reaching Veilstone, though – forcing him to change clothes in the city before carrying on. Oh and he claims to have also had an encounter with a couple of Psyduck which seemed pretty checked out… I assume Misty rammed her bike into one. After leaving the city, he just had to face – I’m sorry, am I reading this correctly, inexistent participant – “hellhounds”. Um… ok… Timmy is a BIG Supernatural fan (Destiel FTW). But he finally made it to the Hotel Grand Lake – the last rest stop before reaching Sunyshore. His legs were already tired, and he was sweatin’ bullets, but his spirits were high as a Staravia!

“I’m sorry sir but Route 222 is closed until further notice, due to the occurrence of a blackout”.

Aaaand that was the end of Timmy’s love story. Don’t feel bad for him, I hear he went on to win a Pulitzer from his work on exposing the Ditto sex trafficking scheme.  

Maybe if Timmy had been a little faster on his route, he could’ve avoided the blackout altogether, it is just such a long stretch of Sinnoh to traverse…

Like Timmy, many residents who work in East Sinnoh face this issue in their daily commute – the lack of viable connections. So where could we begin to tackle this subject?

Well I heard of a guy who has been trying to dig a tunnel from Route 2014, to Solaceon Town, all by himself! Must be tough, Excadrill weren’t even invented back then…

Maybe our kind investors could give him a hand with their funds! We could make the efforts go faster and more smoothly, maybe even establish some underground ferry mechanism to aid in the crossover. Create a separate entrance, so people wouldn’t have to disturb the Unown. The newly crafted pathway would sure come in handy for travelers, maybe even helping in dynamizing Solaceon or Celestic Town with tourists staying at the Hotel Grand Lake! Seems like a somewhat simple-enough project for us to tackle.

So we basically identified a necessity, designed a way to overcome said necessity and then implemented it – thus creating sustainable impact!

Fantastic! Stunning!

Speaking of stunning – hrm, our efforts might be a bit derailed if these “blackouts” continue. Maybe someone could go have a chat with Volkner, to stop experimenting with the power grid? Perhaps Flint could help, I hear they get along quite well… Does he even have a license to tinker with the mechanisms? What, imaginary voice? You don’t need one in Sinnoh? So you mean I can just connect my Raichu to a generator and power my entire 12-story building?

That seems… unlawful. Couldn’t we do something to change that? Well, we could write a strong-worded letter to the lawmakers of Sinnoh, urging them to pass legislation on these activities. Maybe even use our leftover funds to raise enough awareness on this issue, so we could enact this change in policy! Wow, that’s what I call putting the G in Governance.

Random segway aside, that is exactly what the last letter in ESG is meant to state – policy, rules, means of internal conduct and culture that an organization runs with. And apart from Volkner’s constant need to reinvent his contraptions, there is a topic on which we can praise Sinnoh – gender equality.

Now, we recognize that we don’t know the details, but let’s assume Gym Leaders are paid equally, as not to have poor shivering Candice earning 70 cents on the poke-dollar, compared to Byron’s wage. 4 female and 4 male gym leaders comprise Sinnoh’s gym challenge. 50/50, nice message to relay. Ok fine, if we only look at the number and don’t analyze much else, we can give Sinnoh a passing grade on this one… what about the Elite Four?

The Elite Four is also comprised of 2 male and 2 female members. Wow, nicely thought out. And Cynthia is given enough screen time to actually be a fleshed out character, even appearing in several generations. She is, after all, in my opinion, the toughest Champion the Player is required to face.

But other generations don’t really follow suit – the list of League Champions or Elite Four members is comprised mostly of men… In these regions perhaps some gender diversity or inclusion metrics could be put in place, starting with getting each of them to affirm their stance and compromise with ending gender inequality in the League Challenge!

For that, I guess we’ll have to take that same ship and sail away to another region, with the sure knowledge that (maybe) we managed to help Sinnoh inch a little closer to a sustainable future!

Your ESG-type Trainer,