In a recent article published by the leading Swiss financial newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Peter Zollinger from SustainAbility and Ivo Knoepfel from onValues analyse current trends pointing to a more active ownership approach by large asset owners, namely pension funds. Initiatives such as the Principles for Responsible Investment and the Enhanced Analytics Initiative are described. onValues is increasingly supporting clients in this field, e.g. on issues related to exercising equity voting rights and active engagement with companies.
In June 2006 onValues coordinated a workshop on behalf of Mistra, The Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, on the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into fixed income investment. The workshop was stimulated by the apparent mismatch between the research devoted to understanding the financial impacts of ESG issues in the fixed income domain and that in equities (in a climate of large and growing allocations to fixed income asset classes by institutional investors).
The key questions posed by the half-day workshop were as follows:
What is the state of the art in the integration of ESG issues into investment research and asset management in corporate fixed income securities?
What are the current approaches to ESG issues for investors in non-corporate debt?
How can fixed income investors benefit from the 'head start' of equity investors in this domain? In which areas might their investment decisions differ?
What possibilities exist for fixed income investors to engage with investee companies and other issuers of debt?
How can academic research support the work of industry practitioners in this field?
Please find the outcomes of the workshop on the Mistra website by downloading the following document: