News & Commentaries
More Companies Reporting on ESG.
"Around 82% of S and P 500 companies published corporate sustainability reports in 2016, according to the Governance and Accountability Institute, up from 20% in 2011 and 72% in 2013." [COMMENTARY] These are great numbers and demonstrate how companies are responding to investor demands for increased ESG reporting. For companies, there’s the additional benefit of…
European Commission takes further steps to enhance business transparency on social and environmental matters.
"These guidelines will help companies to disclose relevant non-financial information in a consistent and more comparable manner. The aim is to boost corporate transparency and performance, as well as encourage companies to embrace a more sustainable approach." [COMMENTARY] Europe again leads in the implementation of ESG. These new guidelines reinforce and expand upon the earlier…
Institutional Investors More Likely to Invest in Companies with Business-Driven ESG Disclosures, According to New White Paper.
"Ninety-eight percent of institutional investors say a company with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives makes for a more attractive investment, according to the newly released white paper, Is Your ESG Report Getting Noticed?, developed by Burson-Marsteller, a strategic communications and global public relations firm, and research firm PSB." [COMMENTARY] Wow. Such studies and…
Can Good Corporate Citizenship Be Measured?
"A new study that tries to quantify and correlate stock performance with E.S.G. factors is generating a lot of chatter among the investor class. The study, developed by a team of quantitative strategists led by Savita Subramanian at Bank of America′s Merrill Lynch Global Research unit, appears to be the most expansive, looking at several…
95% of European pension funds ignore climate change impact: Mercer.
"With NASA stating that April 2017 was the second hottest since records began in 1880 (with 2016 the hottest), Mercer′s recent report has found that only 5% of 1,241 European pensions schemes have considered the investment risk posed by climate change. As a result the consultancy has called for ’more urgency from the industry’ to…
Individuals and institutions split on benefits of ESG investing: survey.
"Individuals believe the environmental, social, and ethical records of the companies they invest in are important, said Natixis, while professionals at institutions and within ’the investment community’ were more sceptical about the efficacy of these strategies, for example having concerns about performance measurement." [COMMENTARY]The findings of this Natixis Global Asset Management survey highlight — in…
