ESG
US pension fund teams up with academics to cut through ESG fog
State fund and MIT’s business school look to improve ESG data and to reflect all investors’ views
Nascent green repo market promises new market ‘ecosystem’
Market participants see demand for repo backed by green collateral
Inconsistent ESG scores force USS to make its own decisions
Pension fund needs ESG alternatives to bonds to help close its funding deficit
Banks explore ESG-linked deal contingents
Trend for tying derivatives to ethical criteria could soon extend to deal contingent hedges
CFTC’s Behnam: regulators must be alert to ‘greenwashing’
Risk USA: ESG products that miss sustainability goals may fall foul of customer protection rules
Investors weigh merits of ESG hedging
Opinion divided over proposed tool for transferring risk of non-sustainable activities
Nordic noir: Swedish state pension fund’s outlook is austere
Sweden’s AP1 aims to ditch illiquid assets and target realistic returns with equities
Banks, regulators call for global climate risk standards
Carney and Winters warn private sector cannot move much further without lawmakers
Fulcrum hangs ESG designs on honing hard numbers
ESG risks will become part of investment and risk management processes across all funds at the firm
CalSTRS CIO: new derivatives needed to hedge ESG risks
Second-largest US pension fund has also reduced fixed income allocation to 12% as rates have fallen
Alt data, Libor and ESG in the time of Covid
The week on Risk.net, September 26–October 2, 2020
Fund managers seek to plug holes in ESG data
Social intel proves elusive as virus reawakens sense of corporate virtue
Quants are key to judicious ESG
Meaningful data analysis critical to future of socially responsible investing, writes Antonia Lim
Ethical funds balk at Europe’s new disclosure regime
Proposals for 32 reporting criteria are “unmanageable”, complain asset managers
Good citizenship can signal better creditworthiness – study
Environmental and social behaviour predicts credit ratings in North America – less so in Europe
Quant investors turn to raw data over ratings in ESG alpha hunt
Firms are using data on product returns and employee welfare to pick winners
Rise of ethical swaps brings hedging questions
Banks ponder how to offset risks of ESG derivatives – or whether hedging is even desirable
For ESG raters, clearer skies still signal stasis
As Covid-19 tamps down environmental risk, rating agencies are unmoving on ESG scoring
ESG-linked hedges raise interest – and questions
Carrot-and-stick trades pay off if green targets are hit, but setting and monitoring those goals is tricky
Caveat pre-emptor: Man ESG chief talks snubbed markets
Robert Furdak is sparking discussions about responsible trend following in unsustainable stocks
Fuzzy data stalls ESG alpha hunt
Quants searching for ESG signals have reached very different conclusions. Mostly they blame the data
The age of ethical investing, but can quants cope?
Systematic managers grapple with ESG demands of clients
ESG like a new factor, alt managers say
Shift of capital to sustainable investing predicted to disrupt established strategies
Don’t invest in bad ESG companies, hedge funds told
Managers have seen a “sea change” in attitudes to sustainability