November 2021

El capital privado y la ESG: del cumplimiento a la creación de valor

Por PWC Las múltiples crisis por las que hemos pasado durante los últimos 18 meses han lanzado un toque de atención al mundo. Si queremos prevenir nuevas pandemias, reducir los riesgos relacionados con el cambio climático, construir una sociedad más equitativa y seguir creciendo tenemos que crear economías más sostenibles. Y las empresas están respondiendo a esta alerta situando a las cuestiones medioambientales, sociales y de gobierno (ESG) como un componente importante de sus decisiones estratégicas. Las compañías reconocen a la...

Knowing the difference between ethical, responsible and impact investing

Climate change awareness and environmental concerns have never been more important, and over the past few years these issues have been spoken about in abundance when describing financial investments. Three phrases in particular have been commonly used to describe investment products and strategies, but there is still confusion as to their exact meaning. Mike Appleby, investment manager on the Liontrust Sustainable Investment team, outlined the difference between ethical investing, responsible practices and impact investing. “Ethical investing looks to avoid controversial industries such...

US. DOL ESG investing rule could be here to stay

Democrats and Republicans in Washington broadly view retirement plan fiduciaries considering ESG factors in investment decisions much differently, with the Trump and Biden administrations promulgating vastly dissimilar regulations on the issue. A new rule proposal from the Department of Labor, which marks the latest move in a long-lasting regulatory fight, would explicitly permit retirement plan fiduciaries to consider climate change and other environmental, social and governance factors when selecting investments and exercising shareholder rights. The proposal, which was unveiled Oct. 13...

October 2021

Denmark. Pension major ATP aims for $31 billion of green investments by 2030

Denmark's ATP, one of Europe's largest pension funds, aims to have 200 billion Danish crowns ($31 billion) worth of green investments by 2030 and half that in 2025, it said in a statement on Thursday. "Reaching 100 billion DKK in green investments in just three years is - even for an investor of ATP's size - an ambitious challenge," ATP's chief executive Bo Foged said in a statement. "We want to spend the money where the return is attractive and a...

Market-led Sustainability is a ‘Fix that Fails’… but It May Have Been the Necessary ‘Defence at First Depth’

By Duncan Austin Humankind is a complex system suddenly pitched into adaptive crisis. From this bigger perspective, our ‘first response’ to the crisis has overwhelmingly been a voluntary market-led response under various banners – SRI, CSR, ESG, ‘impact’ etc. While this voluntary market-led (VML) meta-strategy has been a beneficial, and possibly inevitable, first response, it is becoming clear it is insufficient as an adaptive solution and that its pursuit now forestalls deeper changes required. We need to graduate from a VML...

Fondo ABP desinvertirá de productores de combustible fósil

El fondo de pensiones más grande de Holanda anunció hoy que dejará de invertir en empresas que producen combustibles fósiles y señaló que la decisión, reclamada desde hace años por muchos miembros del fondo, se debía a reportes climáticos recientes de Naciones Unidas y la Agencia Internacional de la Energía. El fondo ABP es un adinerado e influyente inversionista que gestiona los ahorros para la jubilación de más de 3 millones de trabajadores holandeses de educación y del gobierno. Tiene...

UK. Pension funds invest £128 billion in fossil fuel businesses, according to new information.

Pension funds should use their huge financial power to help the fight against climate change, a Cabinet minister will say tomorrow. In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank, Work and Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey is to argue the multi-trillion pound retirement savings across the world can become a global “superpower” in the battle for a greener planet. Her address will coincide with the Government setting out plans to align UK pension rules with the 2015 Paris Accord goal to...

Dutch pension giant spurns fossil fuels as funds shift before COP26

Dutch pension fund ABP will divest 15 billion euros ($17.5 billion) of investments in fossil fuel producers by 2023, it said on Tuesday, as many of the world's biggest investors set out new climate policies ahead of next week's COP26 summit. Read also UK pension schemes are funding more emissions than the entire UK’s carbon footprint With policymakers gearing up for the talks aimed at accelerating action on global warming, financial firms from across the world are announcing new steps to...

UK. 39% of DC schemes failing to take account of ESG in default strategies

Around 39 per cent defined contribution (DC) pension schemes do not include environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the design of their default investment strategies, research from LCP has found. The survey showed that whilst 50 per cent of schemes were taking account of ESG investing "to some extent" in the design of their default investment strategy and 11 per cent were taking account "explicitly so", others were lagging behind. In addition to this, around 49 per cent of DC...

How Green is Your Pension?

Some of the UK's biggest businesses have yet to sign up to any net zero commitments, but there are signs of changes afoot Pension schemes are huge, and hugely influential, beasts. Scheme membership has widened massively over recent years as a result of auto-enrolment, with almost eight in 10 UK employees now enrolled in a workplace pension. Clearly, then, they play a critical role in the country’s investment landscape. According to the latest government data, private sector pension funds had a...