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1 May 2012
Environmental-Finance: Asset owners misunderstand sustainable investment
Source:
www.environmental-finance.com
Asset owners could help boost sustainable investing by engaging more with investors on their progress in the area, say experts.
In order to see environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues more widely evaluated by investors, there needs to be more transparency on progress made, Rory Sullivan, senior research fellow at the University of Leeds and strategic advisor at Ethix SRI Advisors, told MSCI’s ESG leadership conference on Friday.
Asset owners could push for more information and ask investors the right questions.
“It is striking how reluctant investors are to be explicit about outcomes of responsible investments,” he said.
Rory Sullivan: asset owners need to ask investors the right questions
“[But] asset owners are pretty uninterested [in ESG]. A number of times they don’t know the right question to ask, and don’t understand responsible investment.”
If more information was published on what investors are achieving, the ESG industry would have a greater accountability, he argued.
“They often do one report, one intervention, and never follow it up. We need to prepare for a long and painful battle.”
James Gifford, executive director of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, said that “it’s a long way to go before asset owners pick that up”, but agreed that it is of great importance for ESG to be more widely taken into account among investors. “There is not enough engagement. If pension funds engage with their members, they’ll engage back,” he said.
He also said that, apart from some ESG specialists, asset consultants “aren’t that aware” of how to consult on responsible investment.
“We need to embed this within the asset consultants talking to these thousands of smaller pension schemes,” he said.
There also needs to be an “explicit integration” of ESG into financial modules in business schools, where analysts are trained, said Esther Gilmore, director at Generation Investment Management in London.
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Sustainable Investment Research Platform
Provided by Webforum