ESG & Sustainable Investing

Is ESG simply a different label for quality or could quality stand as a less controversial and politically sensitive description of highly sustainable companies? The question of whether ESG characteristics of listed companies form a new independent factor and a distinctive source of returns is an important one to address.

Many overlook ESG criteria in the Emerging Markets sector, but this is missing a key opportunity it can offer: by reducing volatility, its application may make EM debt more attractive to those interested in the space but avoid it nonetheless due to political and other risks.

Favored investment approaches, investor motivation, public and private markets, measuring impact, where the main opportunities and challenges lie.

With Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh being the venue of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), it’s worth remembering that developing economies bear most of the negative effects of emissions mainly produced in industrialized nations. Therefore, the onus is on western companies to go “net zero carbon”, but how to measure their progress? One common yardstick for investors is the carbon footprint method – or the more encompassing “potential avoided emissions” method propagated by Vontobel’s impact investing team.

In recent months and years we have seen remarkable growth in the number of ESG-focused or sustainable investment strategies being offered by asset managers, a trend that first emerged in the equity market but is now making itself felt in the world of fixed income.

Graeme Anderson shares five lessons from sustainable bond investing, including how E and S are catching up to G and why Coca-Cola scores higher than Tesla.

TwentyFour Asset Management’s portfolio management team offer bond issuers three tips on improving their ESG data disclosure, and explain why companies shouldn’t attempt to fool them.

Why should investors care about ESG and why has the focus on ESG increased over the last several years? We believe the answer lies partly in the uncertain times in which we live. ESG shines a light on stability. It is not a luxury, but a critical part of risk management.