If Larry Fink other business leaders wrote a letter to the US financial Manager’s attention is certainly. Because Fink directs Blackrock . The company manages over 6000 billion dollars, and is the largest asset managers in the world. At the beginning of the year, Fink wrote “his” companies to Profit is not everything. Companies that did not fulfill their social responsibility, would in the long term, “stumble and fall”.
This shows that Sustainable Investing is not a niche, but the Norm. In Switzerland alone, were created according to Swiss Sustainable Finance, in 2017, around 390 billion Swiss francs, according to sustainability criteria, which is an increase of 82 percent. Blackrock itself indicates that, of the 6 trillion customer deposits, approximately 512 billion dollars to environmental, Social and Governance criteria (ESG) investing.
What really is sustainable?
create the long term money is not so easy. The self-Tariq Fancy, at Blackrock, the world as a chief Investment officer for sustainable Investments responsible says. “There is a General confusion about what sustainable Investments are, in fact,” says the Blackrock Manager in the conversation.
So there is no global Standard for how companies about their environmental and social risks to report. The preparation of the financial figures is standardized, however, for a long time, so listed companies in Europe for exchange-a balance sheet according to IFRS is mandatory. “The ESG Reporting of companies is reminiscent, however, of the balance of payments standards of 50 years ago”, complained Fancy. “There is a lack of coherence. It makes capital allocation more difficult.”
in fact, there are already a number of initiatives, the wild growth is to be enclosed. So there is of the United Nations “Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)”, which deal with the reporting obligations of enterprises. The EU Commission is working on Standards. The list could go on.
Uniform definitions are missing in addition to the product level. For investors, it’s so difficult to tell which Fund is truly sustainable and what is. The EU wants to curb the wild growth. To do this, your own Labels are to be created for “green” Investments, so that investors have. At the level of the companies, the EU wants to develop a kind of positive list, which activities as “green” are valid and which are not.
“Given the diversity, I think it is neither desirable nor feasible to give a single Definition.”Sabine Döbeli, head of the Swiss Sustainable Finance,
experts are however skeptical. “There are different approaches to managing a sustainable Fund,” says Sabine Döbeli, head of the Association Swiss Sustainable Finance. “Given the diversity, I think it is neither desirable nor feasible to give a single Definition.”
she pointed out that the EU in its efforts only on the aspect of “environment” in the view. “With regard to the categories of “social” or “corporate governance”, such a Definition is much more difficult,” she mentioned that.
the experts of the rating Agency Scope. “Regardless of a concrete definition of Sustainability, we keep the measurement in practice is very complex,” says Scope-Analyst Bernhard Bartels, “because companies would have to report this on your entire supply chain.” Otherwise, you might pass on companies are simply not sustainable production processes to their suppliers.
Blackrock sells in Europe 18 actively managed sustainability Fund. According to the Fancy of the ESG would be criteria, but also in the actively managed Fund as an additional decision criterion. The boundaries blur.
sustainability is profitable
It is long since disproved, that clean economies to the detriment of the yield. The opposite is rather the case. Since the ‘ 70s, 2200 papers have been written on the subject. Deutsche Bank has evaluated and come to the conclusion that 90 percent of the studies show that sustainability has a negative impact on the yield. According to the great majority of the studies, there is even a positive effect.
in Order to decide which company is concretely and sustainably, and deepening of the Blackrock analysts, among others, in the sustainability reports of the companies and the Ratings of the provider MSCI. The Lack of Reporting Standards make the work tedious, but not impossible. “We see the glass half full,” said Fancy.
non-governmental organisations such as Friends of Earth, hold against black rocks commitment to sustainability for a whitewashing. “Blackrock is the biggest driver in the destruction of the climate”, it means in the campaign, “Blackrock’s Big Problem”. Because the largest part of the assets is in the passive funds that replicate a stock index such as the MSCI World or the Swiss SMI. Therefore, Blackrock is one of the largest investors in sectors such as coal and Oil.
Fancy defending his employer: The money belonged to the customer, and if they bought a Fund after the example of a stock index, in which Oil companies are included, Blackrock’t have a choice. As a shareholder, Blackrock attempts to make its influence. So Blackrock Oil and gas companies have asked to better inform the public about the consequences of environmental regulation for their balance sheet. In the past year alone, the asset Manager has addressed in its contacts with over 200 companies on the climate change. (Editorial Tamedia)
Created: 25.03.2019, 19:32 PM
