Browsing: ESG

What is a smart city? By definition, a smart city is “a city that uses technology and data purposefully to make better decisions and deliver better quality of life.”  Technology is intricately embedded into the everyday life of city dwellers through network devices, applications, and widely distributed usage.  The combinationRead More

EUPOPEAN GREEN DEAL – TOWARDS A ZERO-CARBON URBAN ENVIRONMENT, Part 5 By Christos Angelis, CAIA – Director at Masterdam This is the fifth article in this series. For Part 1, please click here. LENDERS TO PLAY A MAJOR ROLE IN THE SUCCESS OF EGD As discussed in previous articles, theRead More

By Aswini Bajaj, CA, CS, CFA, FRM, CAIA, CIPM, CCRA, CIRA, CIIB, AIM & Team Leveraged Growth Introduction Since the mid-20th century, mankind has faced the problem of self-induced climate change which has caused ecological havoc and is now also impacting the economy. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates thatRead More

By Winston Ma, CFA & Esq – Adjunct Professor, NYU School of Law Who holds the power in financial markets? For many, the answer would probably be the large investment banks, big asset managers and hedge funds that are often in the media’s spotlight. But more and more a newRead More

By Chung-Hong Fu, Managing Director, Research Timberland Investment Resources, LLC As interest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues increases, investors and investment managers are working to define and refine what ESG means and what ESG engagement looks like in the context of their portfolios and the asset classes inRead More

In the first half of 2020, a period dominated by the spread of the Covid-19 virus and by the shut-down of economic activity in country after country around the world, investing with an eye to environmental, social, and governance issues proved valuable as a risk management measure, according to anRead More

Part 4: Real Estate Developers: Hostage of Trophy Hunting Investors & Certification Standards? By Christos Angelis, CAIA – Director at Masterdam This is the fourth article in this series. Please read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. THE RELEVANCE OF THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL FOR DEVELOPERS Real estate development in the EuropeanRead More

Meir Statman, a professor of finance at Santa Clara University and a consultant to Avantis Investors, has focused his scholarly efforts for decades on behavioral finance, and those efforts have given us a recent book on the subject, Behavioral Finance: The Second Generation. In Statman’s view the first generation ofRead More

Assuming that the growth of environmental, social, and governance-based investing is not yet at, but is approaching, a tipping point, and assuming that knowing that tipping point with precision will yield alpha, can machine learning help find it? That is the question posed in a recent paper by the globalRead More

By Grant Murgatroyd, senior writer EMEA at Preqin Preqin predicts that alternative assets under management will rise to $17.2 trillion in 2025. We believe the COVID-19 induced slowdown in 2020 will be temporary and lead to a larger, more efficient, and more sustainable industry. Assets under management (AUM) in alternativesRead More

A report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development critiques “current market practices” in connection with Environmental, Social, and Governance investing. It says that the bewildering ratings, investment terminology, and individual metrics, “present a fragmented and inconsistent view of ESG risks and performances.” On the bright side, the OECDRead More

Part 3: Real Estate Tenants: Free Riders or Simply Uninformed? CHRISTOS ANGELIS, CAIA – Director at Masterdam This is the third article in this series. Please read Part 1 & Part 2.  BLAME GAME BETWEEN TENANTS & LANDLORDS The European Green Deal (EGD)[i] is expected to be a catalyst forRead More

Micro finance is a very contested subject within the realm of ESG investing. The idea, for which a Bangladeshi, Muhammad Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is that very small loans to very small-scale entrepreneurs within large populations that have historically gone unbanked, and in particular that haveRead More

By Sara Olsen and David Pritchard of SVT Group and Yuwei Shi of Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey *Please take a moment to complete the brief survey at the conclusion of this article. Every investment generates or destroys social and environmental value, aside from financial return. One ofRead More

Economists in general, and scholars of finance in particular, have long been concerned with the “agency problem,” the conflict of interest inherent in any relationship where X is expected, and perhaps required by law or contract, to act in the best interest of Y. The problem exists because, for example,Read More

Part 1 of a multi-part series: The Role of the EU, National Governments & Local Authorities By Christos Angelis, CAIA – Director at Masterdam INTRODUCTION In light of the exciting developments in the European Union regarding the European Green Deal (EGD)[1] presented in the end of 2019, it would beRead More

In late February and early March, we witnessed what the European Corporate Governance Institute calls an “an exogenous and unparalleled” crash, during which the S&P 500 shed one-third of its value, dropping from approximately 3,300 on Feb. 20 to close at 2,200 one month later. This provided a natural experimentRead More

By Michael O’Leary and Warren Valdmanis GIIN’s 10th Anniversary report highlights new records, but what’s the endgame? When the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) issued its first survey a decade ago, the term “impact investing” had only been coined three years earlier. Just 24 investors responded. In GIIN’s tenth anniversaryRead More

A new report by two analysts at Robeco discusses sustainability trends in energy credits, especially in the era of Covid 19. The analysts acknowledge the demand collapse that is keeping crude oil, and accordingly alternatives fuels, at very low values. Their focus is on what lies ahead for energy credits.Read More

 Adam O. Emmerich of the corporate and securities law firm Wachtell Lipton in a recent memo cautioned the firm’s corporate clients that the expectations on them with regard to transparency on environmental, social, and governance matters will increase in the months ahead. His emphasis is on the social part ofRead More

By Ashby Monk, Executive and Research Director at Global Projects Center, Stanford University & Dane Rook, Research Engineer at Global Projects Center, Stanford University “The world needs institutional investors to save society as we know it.” Say these words to your mother, and she may check your temperature; say them at aRead More

It has been 10 years since the United Kingdom introduced a Stewardship Code, drawn up by its Financial Reporting Council (FRC), a quasi-governmental agency. The code was meant to remedy some of the inadequacies in the system of corporate governance that, it was thought, the crises of 2007-2008 had revealed.Read More

Two scholars at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark  have devised what they call a “text-based sustainability sentiment measure,” that is, a quantification of when and to what extent concerns about climate change are rising amongst investors, with a likely consequence for the success of an ESG-oriented trading policy. The authors areRead More

A recent literature review conveys the state of scholarly understanding of ESG alpha.It also discusses how machine learning may help alternatives managers to track, and at the right time to pounce upon, a critical tipping point. Joachim Erhardt, a managing director at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) and an independent scholar, startsRead More

KPMG and CREATE have collaborated on a new report on the involvement of hedge funds in sustainable investing, which they define as investing that aims at three interlocking results: avoid harm and mitigate ESG risks; benefit all stakeholders; and contribute solutions to societal problems. The involvement of hedge funds inRead More

Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP, Managing Director of Content Strategy, CAIA Association CAIA Association and FDP Institute recently had a conversation with Mike Chen and George Mussalli. Dr. Chen is the director of equity investments and Mr. Mussalli is the managing director and CIO of equity investments at PanAgora.Read More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association PPE has entered the global vernacular, courtesy of another (deadly) acronym now known as COVID-19. The latter needs no additional introduction, as the former (Personal Protective Equipment) has been one of the many combat weapons to staunch the relentless march of what is now a global pandemic. Of the many things we are learningRead More

Three executives at AQR Capital have proposed a new variant on modern portfolio theory, an elaboration of the classical idea of an efficient frontier. The idea, going back to Markowitz’ 1952 paper, is that there exists a set of possible portfolios such that each achieves the best possible risk-return tradeoff.Read More

A recent paper by two legal scholars warns of the absence of transparency, of the opacity, that investors may face in ESG funds and ESG exchange-traded funds. “Buyer Beware: Variation and Opacity in ESG ad ESG Index Funds,” is the work of Dana Brackman Reiser and Anne M. Tucker, whoRead More

Unicorns (privately owned start-ups with a valuation of at least $1 billion) have long been the great sought-after beasts of the VC and PE worlds. But are they good for the planet? The unicorn boom was driven by the combination of easy credit and old-fashioned hype, combined with the wayRead More

By Nicolas Rabener of FactorResearch @FactorResearch INTRODUCTION Investors seeking exposure to global equities with a low carbon footprint could consider the iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon ETF (CRBN) or SPDR MSCI ACWI Low Carbon ETF (LOWC). CRBN has $500 million of assets under management, compared with $90 million for LOWC.Read More

In 2015 the United Nations defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals [no poverty, no hunger, health & well-being, etc.] along with 169 targets that were devised to allow for quantitative measurement of progress. It also set 2030 as the bull’s eye for the attainment of the goals. Since governments alone areRead More

John Bowman, CFA, Senior Managing Director at CAIA Association “You’re a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond.” (Mr. White to 007, Spectre) Despite the crystal blue island water, softly rolling Caribbean tide, and perfect skies outside the hotel all week, I opened my conference wrap-up panel reminding delegates forRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association While this week’s post may harken to a certain book written by John Coates, there is a different play on the metaphor at work here, with our wheezing planet spinning in the center. Consider the wolf: powerful, aggressive, and risk-seeking. The wolf is alsoRead More

The Republic of France, in March 2019, decided that it would no longer consider fuel made from palm oil to be a “biofuel,” effective as of January 2020. So that  redefinition is now in effect. Meanwhile, the EU recently set tariffs on palm oil coming in from Indonesia or Malaysia:Read More

By Aaron Filbeck, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Associate Director, Content Development at CAIA Association Building the Burger I love when our industry uses analogies to describe investment concepts, so I must applaud one of the introductory pieces to JPMorgan’s 2020 Global Alternatives Outlook. In their introduction to the report, the authorsRead More

Sustainability-sensitive investing has a net positive impact on performance, according to a paper released by Robeco. According to the paper written by Chris Berkouwer, a Robeco equity analyst, ESG was responsible for 20% of the outperformance of a Robeco fund over a period of three years. His findings are presentedRead More

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), a non-profit organization has developed industry-specific standards across environmental, social, and governance topics, working toward a consensus on the sorts of disclosures that the issuers of securities should and will make to their investors. In November 2018, SASB released complete standards for 77 industries.Read More

A recent MIT Sloan research paper looks at the degree to which various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings diverge and why. The paper is the work of Florian Berg and Roberto Rigobon, both of MIT Sloan, and Julian F. Kolbel, who is affiliated with the University of Zurich’s departmentRead More