The Climate and Energy Finance Group from the University of Otago has just released a research report on the responsible investment (environmental, social, governance; ESG) policies and strategies of global equity funds available to Australasian investors.
Saturn Advice had the privilege of contributing to this work and a copy of the report is available to download. At Saturn, we believe there is growing evidence that companies who embed ESG considerations into their decision making are likely to achieve superior long-term financial performance compared with companies that don’t.
Our process for evaluating, selecting and monitoring fund managers includes looking through an ESG lens. We review fund manager policies and/or principles on ESG investing, we check whether they are members or signatories to responsible investing organisations, we look at their funds ESG scores and other ESG metrics from independent resources, and we discuss with managers their approach to ESG and how this is evolving through time. The findings of this latest research will help us with asking challenging questions on the areas managers can or should be doing more.