Do we need to put a Q in ESG?

Is ESG simply a different label for quality? Or could quality stand for a less controversial and politically sensitive description of highly sustainable companies? The question whether ESG characteristics of listed companies constitute a new independent factor and thus a distinctive source of returns from academically backed-up systematic factors,¹ has been increasingly discussed in the investment community over the last few years. To keep this debate simple, it’s possible to classify the broad range of opinions on this topic into two main categories:

Opposing ends of the debate

One view is that ESG scores or ratings may not provide any truly new information, since they’re already included in well-documented investment style factors like quality, momentum, size, and volatility. Studies supporting this view generally don’t conclude to any statistically convincing relationship between an idiosyncratic ESG residual (not explained by correlations with traditional factors) and portfolios’ active returns (see box 1 for a survey of recent academic literature).

At the other end of the spectrum, some studies attempt to highlight the existence of an ESG “alpha”, not resulting from traditional factors’ exposures. While they don’t reject a certain level of overlap between ESG ratings and some factors, and especially between governance ratings and various quality sub-factors (e.g. low leverage and low earnings variability), such studies also point to a small, yet statistically significant and stable, premium from ESG characteristics, independent of traditional factors.

Where ESG and quality overlap

The empirical jury is apparently still out. However, investment practitioners with a history of integrating ESG sustainability criteria into stock selection processes focusing on quality companies across different markets could cast a different light on where ESG and quality overlap.

It’s first worth highlighting that, unlike the factors of value or size, there is no simple, consensual, and decisive definition of quality. Academics and portfolio managers often diverge between the dimensions (including safety, variability, and profitability) and the precise set of indicators used to screen quality companies. Therefore, subject to the choice of the underlying quality metrics, the space left to ESG factors to provide “extra information” and yield an autonomous premium could vary.

In our case, as we tend to favor a definition of quality focusing on profitability – a quality sub-factor that, on average, has the least correlation to ESG ratings – we often find the value generated by our ESG research extends beyond the preliminary screening and subsequent financial analysis of quality companies. In 2020, our mtx emerging markets team analyzed the relationship between ESG and returns on invested capital (ROIC) scores and the impact of ESG in high ROIC companies. This analysis concluded that ESG acts as a proxy for quality, adding a minor active return, a bit more sizeable for high ROIC companies. A portfolio manager focusing more on safety (low level of leverage and high level of cash) would have probably reached a different conclusion.

Emerging versus developed markets

Beyond their divergences, most empirical studies agree that correlation levels between ESG characteristics and quality features are not the same across different markets. They’re usually much lower or nonexistent in emerging markets.

The practical observations we’ve made tend to support this. Applied to emerging markets, our integrated ESG approach has proved a persistent source of value add, in terms of risk reduction and/or return enhancement, relative to a traditional quality screening (even centered on profitability). By contrast, applying our strategies to developed markets may have led to a lower influence from ESG analysis on average. But exceptions are always possible, such as when technological advances in “clean production” for a leading Swiss manufacturer in a “high emitting part of ndustry” helped secure its industry positioning and higher equity valuation.

In developed markets, a more effective way to reveal discriminate sources of “sustainable growth” is to extend sustainability analysis to the impact dimension of business models. This includes measuring a business’ capacity to answer – better than others – the need of the global economic transition involved by major environmental and social challenges.

The important role of nuance

Where the academic literature on this topic aligns is in its extensive reliance on ESG rating sources with the highest coverage and longest history. How useful such sources may be in ensuring a basic coverage of a large universe, as well as the flaws and occasional inconsistencies of this data, has been widely documented. This is particularly true for ratings agencies’ need to answer standardized methodologies, which may lead to a lack of nuances – and sometimes relevance – between industries, geographic markets, capitalization size, etc. This is where a more granular, nimble, and focused approach – which concentrates analysis on the dimensions and criteria really material to each of the sub-sectors and geographic markets – could add significant value relative to the systematic use of primary data.

In conclusion, our practical experience of integrating various level of “ESG/sustainability” analysis with our screening of quality companies confirms that ESG analysis is an additional source of information that is generally rewarded positively. However, this source may vary depending on how we define quality, our investment universe, and the materiality of the ESG dimension we are scrutinizing for various industries and markets. ESG is undeniably correlated with quality, but we reasonably believe it stands for more than that, at least when quality is defined in a relatively narrow sense.