COP15’s plan for planet Earth

When hearing “COP” conference, many think of the UN Climate COP. However, another Conference of the Parties that is making incredible strides is the “Biodiversity COP.” The 2022 Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) held in Montreal was attended by representatives from 188 governments around the world, ministers … Read more

Stewart Investors adds sustainable Indian fund

Stewart Investors has launched an Irish-domiciled VCC version of the Indian Subcontinent Sustainability Fund, managed by Sashi Reddy and David Gait. The OEIC strategy was launched in 2006 and currently has $627m in assets under management for global clients. Joining the group’s existing global suite of sustainability funds, the Irish-domiciled VCC will be available to … Read more

Time to place ESG ‘underperformance’ in context

Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Investing in investments that have sustainability criteria has accelerated in the past decade – there’s now more than $4trn in total global assets. With this massive capital transfer into ESG investments, there’s been an increasing backlash to the … Read more

ESG is about quality not quantity

Following a decade of remarkable growth in US strategies that integrate ESG criteria into their analysis and portfolio selection, the 2022 US SIF trends report released last month showed a significantly lower number of assets under management. While some may say this data suggests we have reached “peak ESG,” or that this is a rebuke … Read more

FTX collapse shows importance of good governance

Whatever you think about the alleged “backlash” against ESG that characterised 2022, there’s no denying the speed at which ESG as a concept has inserted itself into the mainstream of the investment world. Of these three factors, the last, governance, has been around the longest and is the least apt to set your pulse racing. … Read more

Appetite for ESG drives overall ETF flows in 2022

ESG products accounted for 65% of total flows into ETFs in 2022, amid a challenging backdrop for performance. The European ETF and ETC market amassed €78.4bn of flows in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Morningstar’s Direct European ETF Asset Flows Update Q4 2022, a figure markedly lower than the €160bn reported in … Read more