The net-zero challenge
As more asset owners and managers commit to net-zero strategies, Roger Urwin outlines the challenges for investors including these additional tasks adding to the already stretched asset owner governance budgets.
Lower management fees and higher returns defined the latest selection process at the Swedish Fund Selection Agency in its latest awarding of active global equity mandates to 12 managers, its largest and most ambitious €20 billion ($23 billion) procurement so far.
As more asset owners and managers commit to net-zero strategies, Roger Urwin outlines the challenges for investors including these additional tasks adding to the already stretched asset owner governance budgets.
The proliferation of grand gestures of sustainability, such as net zero commitments, means manager due diligence is even more important and more intensive, according to global head of research at Willis Towers Watson, Luba Nikulina.
Building on the commentary from Ricardo Research that calls for a mandates to be re-written to incentivise long-term behaviour, Matthew Leatherman from FCLTGlobal outlines practical steps investors have made to change behaviour.
Mercer will incorporate DEI considerations into its manager research the same way it pioneered the incorporation of ESG factors in its manager ratings process back in 2012. The integration of DEI is a parting gift from long-term global head of investment research, Deb Clarke, who retired yesterday. Amanda White spoke to her about her legacy and the investment industry’s unfinished business.
CEOs are accustomed to stretch targets and reward outcomes, not efforts says TIAA’s Thasunda Brown Duckett, the same principals should be applied in the DEI space. She was speaking alongside CIOs from CalPERS and CalSTRS at a diversity forum co-hosted by the funds.
Aware Super, one of Australia's largest superannuation funds, engaged McKinsey as part of the development of its next five-year strategy which the fund presented to the board in March. As it develops its next five-year plan a key initiative is how to deal with growth as it plans for an organisation that could double in size.
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