ESG

Institutional investment in natural capital assets continues to grow, buoyed by supportive regulation and corporate interest in the market, but good global data is still hard to come by.

The bias towards investing in domestic securities and the complexity of the local benchmarks mean the impact investing conversation is “very advanced” Down Under, according to global asset manager Ninety One.

The $14 billion industry fund is in hot water over allegations its member money is exposed to companies that should have been screened out and that it held on to Russian stocks despite saying it had dumped them.

ESG is the “emptiest” idea, according to Aswath Damodaran, while AI will morph into higher costs for companies overall with no competitive advantage in a world where the technology is ubiquitous.

Boutique fund manager Alphinity has struck a partnership with the CSIRO to develop a new framework to assess responsible artificial intelligence practices and ESG considerations.

The global energy system is changing at a rapid pace but it’s too early to pick winners, according to Calvert. And despite a tough 2022, true ESG will prevail.

The Paris-aligned benchmarks that an increasing number of global investors now subscribe to disincentivise activities that might actually help the energy transition, according to index provider Scientific Beta.

Political polarization in the United States and new regulations affecting the labelling of products and funds means boutique ESG managers are back in the spotlight.

Super funds are a perfect fit for nation-building infrastructure projects, as long as the government doesn’t compete against them. And it shouldn’t be drawn into competing with the US Inflation Reduction Act when the opportunity set is broader than it seems.

Osmosis IM was started with the belief that resource efficient companies would outperform their more wasteful peers. Fourteen years later it’s landed what’s likely the largest new ESG mandate in history.

The free money era in which the transition to renewable energy could have been dirt cheap is over. But after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world has a golden opportunity to get the job done.

The rush to decarbonize the economy and the ASX risks leaving workers and communities behind, and investors exposed to “significant losses” and greater social support costs.