September 2021
08Sep

Sweden. AP2 continues sustainability journey with stellar returns and costs

Swedish buffer fund, AP2, has incorporated Paris-aligned rules into its benchmark construction for global and emerging market equities. This year it turns its attention to Swedish and Chinese equities. The moves come on the back of the best-ever half year return for the SEK421.2 billion fund and its lowest ever costs. AP2 is one of the originals, a long-time ESG investor that has sustainability at its core. It started to divest from fossil fuel exposed companies in 2014 with a rationale...

September 8, 2021
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07Sep

Sustainable investing gaining ground in Asia

Sustainable investing continues to gain ground in Asia, with governments, pension plans and asset managers moving to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their investment strategies, a new study finds. Globally, most pension fund investors stayed the course with their asset allocation, even amid heightened volatility and uncertainty over the last year, according Mercer’s Asset Allocation Insights 2021 report. Foreign equities now represent 51% of aggregate equity allocations globally, the first time since 2013 that exposure outside of investors’...

September 7, 2021
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03Sep

Social Investment: A New Zealand Policy Experiment , Jonathan Boston and Derek Gill (eds) (2018)

By Alessandra De Marco The notion of prioritising ‘productive’ social investments over ‘consumptive’ social spending has long been advocated but only sporadically applied. Since 2011, however, New Zealand governments have implemented an ambitious, multi-agency social investment agenda that promises to overhaul public social spending through analyses of citizen-derived data. This commentary focuses on the development and features of the social investment agenda. In doing so, it discusses the apparent primacy of fiscal outcomes over social outcomes, and the practices and...

September 3, 2021
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03Sep

Global Pensions and ESG: Is There A Better Way?

By Luba Nikulina The influence of ESG factors has been growing exponentially in the last five years. This paper explores whether purpose with multiple stakeholders, responsibility for the impact of investments, and system level engagement apply to global pension funds. Aside from government spending, global pension assets represent the largest pool of capital on the planet with the longest time horizon and multiple stakeholders across different generations. The power of influence of this capital is enormous. Many international challenges can...

September 3, 2021
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01Sep

Sustainability Gains In Asset Management, Led By Marketing

Asset managers are paying more attention to ESG — environmental, social and governance — concerns, according to a recent report from Northern Trust. “While many European markets have long made ESG a focus in their investment strategies, other mature markets in parts of North America and Asia have had a less straightforward approach,” Northern Trust reported, although recently Canadian asset managers have moved ahead of the U.S. “Alongside the pandemic, the summer of 2020 brought a global reckoning with racism, originating...

September 1, 2021
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August 2021
26Aug

How to avoid green bubbles and diversify against climate crisis

Although green bubbles are emerging as a result of the sustainability boom, investors can find safer ways to tap into the climate transition theme. This is according to Nikesh Patel, head of investment strategy at Kempen, who agreed that bubbles are emerging when investors invest in the theme too narrowly, giving the farmland sector as an example. Read also ESG: Impact Investing ‘If you invest only in listed farmland equities, and that became your focus - you are creating a bubble, because...

August 26, 2021
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23Aug

ESG: Impact Investing

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Investors are finding that financial performance and ESG ‘impact’ can be complementary goals Understanding the landscape of environmental, social and governance investing is critical to choosing the right investment strategy, particularly when it comes to the impact of that investment. As ESG investing continues to evolve and institutional investors have a growing number of strategies to pursue, they may find it challenging to navigate the wider array of options and to apply the appropriate nomenclature to the...

August 23, 2021
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17Aug

Índice Mundial de Pensiones de Mercer y el CFA Institute

Por Mercer & CFA Insititute Resulta fundamental garantizar la seguridad financiera de los individuos y las sociedades durante la jubilación, ya que la mayoría de los países se enfrentan actualmente a los efectos sociales, económicos y financieros del envejecimiento de la población. En 2020, estas cuestiones se han acentuado debido al COVID-19; sin embargo, no solo la pandemia y el envejecimiento de la población representan retos para los sistemas de pensiones de todo el mundo. El entorno económico actual, con...

August 17, 2021
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17Aug

US. Should the Federal Government ‘Green’ Its Pension Plan?

Climate change is posing an existential threat to more than just the planet. In fact, the federal government is concerned that weather-related risks will begin eroding the retirement portfolios of its employees. Read also US. Climate Change and Benchmarking Risk for Retirement Plans Earlier this year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the board overseeing the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal workers analyze the financial performance of companies in its portfolio, in light of risks related to climate change...

August 17, 2021
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12Aug

Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis

By IPCC This Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents key findings of the Working Group I (WGI) contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)1 on the physical science basis of climate change. The report builds upon the 2013 Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the 2018–2019 IPCC Special Reports2 of the AR6 cycle and incorporates subsequent new evidence from climate science3 . This SPM provides a high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of...

August 12, 2021
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