British shoppers are expected to spend £4.4bn less on non-essentials – a fall of 22% – in the run-up to Christmas as a surge in the cost of living puts a squeeze on their spare cash. Almost 60% of shoppers expect to cut back on non-food spending in the so-called “golden quarter”, or last three months of the year when most retailers book the majority of profits, according to research by Retail Economics with retail technology firm Metapack. – Guardian
John Lewis has pledged to have “buy back or take back” schemes operating in every product category by 2025 and to develop more rental and resale options as it steps up efforts to be a more sustainable business. The group, which runs Waitrose supermarkets as well as a string of department stores, will also invest £2m over the next five years to restore and protect nature in Norfolk, a key source of meat, cereal and vegetable products, and in India’s Noyyal and Bhavani river basins, where it sources cotton, under a partnership with the wildlife charity WWF. – Guardian
A prototype nuclear fusion power station will be built at the site of one of the UK’s last coal-burning stations, Jacob Rees-Mogg has announced. In a speech to the Tory party conference, the Business Secretary said the pioneering facility in Nottinghamshire will be “a beacon of bountiful, green energy” and prove the technology’s commercial viability. – Telegraph
Legal & General has made hundreds of millions of pounds selling the pension products that forced the Bank of England into a £65bn bailout last week. The FTSE 100 pensions giant has earned around £80m annually from offering so-called liability-driven investment (LDI) funds to clients in recent years, according to analyst estimates. – Telegraph
Sustainable investment policies are damaging businesses, according to an American activist who is urging Chevron to pump more oil, Apple to ditch a racial equity audit and Disney to avoid politics. Vivek Ramaswamy, a conservative investor, argued that the environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda, an increasing priority in boardrooms worldwide, is “sucking the lifeblood out of a democracy”. – The Times
