Sustainability
Tenured Harvard Business School professor, now at Oxford University.
Senate Republicans are introducing legislation directing retirement plan sponsors to select investments solely based on monetary factors, an extension of the position adopted by the Trump Administration Department of Labor. The sponsors to the legislation defend it by arguing that retirement accounts should be off limits to politics. The debate stems from the increasing criticism of pension and mutual funds that incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into their investment policies.
In challenging investment managers’ focus on ESG data, however, critics conflate two distinct issues. A body of empirical literature makes the claim that ESG data is relevant to evaluating a company from an economic perspective. We term this a “value-based ESG strategy.” For example, portfolio managers may invest in companies that they believe face strong growth prospects because they have products to help in the mitigation and adaption of climate change, or in companies that have strategies which will enable them to transform their business models in the fact of climate change. This is a value-based strategy. Of course, this assumes a particular perspective on the risks associated with climate change—one can argue that climate change is not real or that, even if it is, regulators will not impose costly changes on companies. The point, however, for such portfolio managers climate change is an economic risk, and their incorporation of climate-related data is a value-based investment strategy.
Investors who believe you can make money by investing in companies that are addressing this problem can invest in the BlackRock Future Climate and Sustainable Economy ETF (BECO). Notably, BECO purports to be investing for value, not values, stating that it “seeks to maximize total return by investing in companies that BlackRock Fund Advisors (“BFA”) believes are furthering the transition to a lower carbon economy.” Similarly Morgan Stanley touts its sustainable equity funds as outperforming their traditional peer funds.
Robert G. Eccles of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford is the author of a number of books on integrated reporting, sustainability and the role of business in society. His focus is on sustainability from both a company and investor perspective. Professor Eccles is also involved in a variety of initiatives to embed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in real world decision making. One of these is the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), of which he was the founding chairman. In 2018, Professor Eccles was selected by Barron’s as one of the top 20 influencers on ESG investing.
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