The adoption of sustainable investing strategies generally and, in particular, the explicit integration of
environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment strategies and investment decision
making across asset classes has been gaining momentum worldwide. The webinar will focus on current
sustainable investing trends and developments in the US and set out a broad framework for conducting
sustainable investment manager due diligence.
Key takeaways:
- Sustainable investing encapsulates a range of strategies that are acknowledged to include
negative screening or exclusions, impact and thematic investing, ESG factor integration, proxy
voting and shareholder/bondholder engagement. - Across the US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) landscape, sustainable investing
is being adopted in a variety of ways and, in the process, the distinction and potential outcomes
across strategies are being conflated. This introduces potential reputational risks to managers
that may be addressed through more transparent reporting and disclosure. - Recent trends show that, at this point, institutional investors are more active than retail investors.
- When conducting sustainable manager and fund oversight and due diligence, different
sustainability investment approaches require different lines of inquiry.
Henry Shilling has been working in the investment management industry or focused on the investment
sector for about forty-five years and is the Founder and Director of Research of Sustainable Research
and Analysis LLC, a firm dedicated to providing independent research, analysis, education and training
for asset owners and institutional investors interested in sustainable investing.
Previously, while employed at Moody’s Investors Service from 1992 to 2017, Henry initiated, led and
coordinated Moody’s worldwide efforts to bolster the rating agency’s research activities and
marketplace engagement within the broad environmental, social and governance (ESG) sphere.
Henry Shilling is the author of The International Guide to Securities Market Indices (1996) and is a
contributor to Money Market Funds in the EU and the US, published in 2014 by Oxford University
Press.