Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: Global sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have made inroads when it comes to improving ESG compliance, according to new research.
The Global SWF's annual Governance, Sustainability, and Resilience Scoreboard showed a marked improvement among some of the world's largest asset owners year over year.
"Sovereign Investors are making an effort to become more transparent and sustainable; however, resilience is still an evolving concept that will be put to the test again under the current financial environment," it said.
ESG is starting to be regarded as a key risk to be tackled, but regular and detailed reporting of responsible investing activities is still an issue.
"This year had eight leaders with a 96% score: CPP, CDPQ, and BCI (Canada), PGGM and ISIF (Europe), and Temasek, Future Fund and NZ Super (Asia-Pacific)," the report highlighted.
The Middle East continues to be the worst region in terms of GSR but has improved significantly since last year.
There is a positive correlation between GSR scores (especially, "G" scores) and financial returns, the report said.
The scoring is based on 25 different elements: 10 related to governance, 10 to sustainability, and five to resilience. These questions, which have not changed since 2020, are answered binarily (Yes/No) with equal weight based on publicly-available information only, and then converted into % points. The system is rigorous, quantitative, and fully independent, as ...................... To view our full article Click here
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