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Ebook Sustainable Investing A Path To A New Horizon 1St Edition Herman Bril Online PDF All Chapter
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“Sustainable investing isn’t just for socially minded do-gooders, but has
become one of the fastest growing parts of the wealth management industry,
and the extraordinary array of contributors to this volume explain why. If
Homo sapiens is to survive to the next millennium, the species will have to
put these ideas into practice sooner rather than later.”
Andrew Lo, MIT Sloan School of Management
“As the global Zeitgeist has shifted, the vision of a sustainable future is within
reach. The investment universe will play a big role in implementing ESG into
the fabric of the economic system. This insightful book shows that we already
have the ideas and, yes, the means to get it done.”
Asoka Wöhrmann, CEO DWS
Sustainable Investing
This book tells the story of how the convergence between corporate sus-
tainability and sustainable investing is now becoming a major force driving
systemic market changes. The idea and practice of corporate sustainability is
no longer a niche movement. Investors are increasingly paying attention to
sustainability factors in their analysis and decision-making, thus reinforcing
market transformation.
In this book, high-level practitioners and academic thought leaders, includ-
ing contributions from John Ruggie, Fiona Reynolds, Johan Rockström, and
Paul Polman, explain the forces behind these developments. The contributors
highlight (a) that systemic market change is influenced by various contex-
tual factors that impact how sustainable investing is perceived and practiced;
(b) that the integration of ESG factors in investment decisions is impacting
markets on a large scale and hence changes practices of major market players
(e.g. pension funds); and (c) that technology and the increasing datafication
of sustainability act as further accelerators of such change.
The book goes beyond standard economic theory approaches to sustain-
able investing and emphasizes that capitalism founded on more real-world
(complex) economics and cooperation can strengthen ESG integration.
Aimed at both investment professionals and academics, this book gives the
reader access to more practitioner-relevant information and it also discusses
implementation issues. The reader will gain insights into how “mainstream”
financial actors relate to sustainable investing.
Herman Bril joined the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF)
in New York as Director of the Office of Investment Management in June of
2016. He has over 25 years of experience in international financial institutions
in multiple countries.
Georg Kell is Chairman of Arabesque, an ESG Quant fund manager that uses
self-learning quantitative models and big data to assess the performance and
sustainability of globally listed companies. Georg is the founding Director of
the United Nations Global Compact.
Edited by
Herman Bril,
Georg Kell and
Andreas Rasche
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Herman Bril, Georg Kell and
Andreas Rasche; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Herman Bril, Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Minion
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
List of figures xi
List of tables xiii
List of boxes xv
List of abbreviations xvii
List of contributors xxi
Foreword by Mark Carney xxxi
PART I
The changing context of sustainable investing 15
2 Business and sustainability, from the firm to the biosphere 17
Simon Levin, Martin Reeves, and Ania Levina
PART II
Rethinking sustainable finance and leadership 129
7 Navigating the ESG world 131
Patrick Bolton, Simon Levin, and Frédéric Samama
PART III
Sustainable investing, technology, and data 225
12 ESG and AI: the beauty and the beast of sustainable investing 227
Omar Selim
PART IV
Accelerating transformational change 285
15 Investing sustainably: transforming assets owners from
sayers to doers 287
Keith Ambachtsheer
Contents ix
Index365
Figures
Herman Bril joined the UNJSPF in New York as Director of the Office of
Investment Management in June 2016. With 25+ years of experience in
international financial institutions in multiple countries, Mr. Bril possesses
broad-level expertise encompassing asset management, sustainable investing,
pension funds, development finance, investment banking, derivatives trad-
ing, and treasury. Before joining the UNJSPF, he served as Group CFO and
Managing Director at Cardano in London. Prior to Cardano, Mr. Bril was
Senior Vice President, Head of Treasury and Capital Management at Aegon
NV, and Head of Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer of Syntrus
Achmea Asset Management. He started his career as a fixed-income derivative
trader for ABN AMRO, Dresdner Bank and Deutsche Bank in Amsterdam,
Frankfurt, and London. Mr. Bril graduated from the Free University in
Amsterdam with a master’s in Economics. Additionally, he graduated from
INSEAD, where he earned a diploma in Consulting and Coaching for Change.
Mr. Bril completed a master’s degree in Studies in Sustainability Leadership
from the University of Cambridge.
Mark Carney is the Governor of the Bank of England and Chair of the
Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Policy Committee and the Board
of the Prudential Regulation Authority. His appointment as Governor was
approved by Her Majesty the Queen on 26 November 2012. The Governor
joined the Bank on 1 July 2013. In addition to his duties as Governor of
the Bank of England, Mark Carney also served as First Vice-Chair of the
CONTRIBUTORS xxiii
European Systemic Risk Board. He is a member of the Group of Thirty and the
Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum. Mark Carney was Chair of
the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. Mark Carney was appointed
as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance on 1 December 2019,
and Prime Minister Johnson’s Finance Adviser for COP26 on 16 January
2020. Mark Carney was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada in
1965. He received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University
in 1988. He went on to receive a master’s degree in Economics in 1993 and
a doctorate in Economics in 1995, both from Oxford University. After a
13-year career with Goldman Sachs in its London, Tokyo, New York, and
Toronto offices, Mark Carney was appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank
of Canada in August 2003. In November 2004, he left the Bank of Canada to
become Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Finance. He held this position
until his appointment as Governor of the Bank of Canada on 1 February 2008.
Mark Carney served as Governor of the Bank of Canada and Chairman of its
Board of Directors until 1 June 2013.
Georg Kell is Chairman of Arabesque, an ESG Quant fund manager that uses
self-learning quantitative models and big data to assess the performance and
sustainability of globally listed companies. Arabesque was launched in 2013
following a management buyout from Barclays Bank. Georg is the found-
ing Director of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest
voluntary corporate sustainability initiative with over 9,000 corporate signa-
tories in more than 160 countries. Georg helped to establish the UN Global
Compact as the foremost platform for the development, implementation,
and disclosure of responsible and sustainable corporate policies and prac-
tices. In a career of more than 25 years at the United Nations, he also oversaw
the conception and launch of the Global Compact’s sister initiatives, the
CONTRIBUTORS xxv
Ania Levina is a Project Leader at the Boston Consulting Group and ambas-
sador to the BCG Henderson Institute. Prior to BCG, Ania completed her
Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Harvard University, and received her Bachelor
of Science from MIT.
Martin Reeves is a Managing Director and Senior Partner in the San Francisco
office of the Boston Consulting Group and Chairman of the BCG Henderson
Institute, BCG’s think tank on business strategy. Mr. Reeves is also author
of Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, which deals with choosing and executing
the right approach in today’s complex and dynamic business environment.
Mr. Reeves holds a triple first-class MA degree in natural sciences from
Cambridge University and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.
He also studied Japanese at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and biophys-
ics at the University of Tokyo.
xxviiiCONTRIBUTORS
Omar Selim is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Arabesque. Omar
has 20 years’ experience in international banking, having held senior posi-
tions at UBS, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. He joined Barclays Bank in
2004, where he was responsible for a multi-billion-dollar revenue budget and
over a thousand staff. In 2012, he initiated a values-based asset management
project at Barclays, originating the concept and developing it into Arabesque.
Established independently in 2013, Arabesque today is a global financial and
research group providing investment and data solutions through advanced
sustainability and AI capabilities. Through its group of companies, Arabesque
leverages cutting-edge technology and research to deliver a new approach to
sustainable finance. Omar holds an M.S. in Finance from the University of
Fribourg (Switzerland).
Halla Tómasdóttir is the CEO of The B Team. Having started her leadership
career in corporate America working for Mars and PepsiCo, she later joined
the founding team of Reykjavik University, was the first female CEO of the
Iceland Chamber of Commerce, and co-founded an ESG-focused investment
firm. She has served on for-profit boards in education, healthcare, finance,
and consumer products and was the runner-up in Iceland’s presidential elec-
tions in 2016.
The catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional
horizons of businesses, financial regulators, and politicians. By the time cli-
mate change becomes a clear and present danger, it could be too late to avoid
widespread environmental and economic destruction.
This “Tragedy of the Horizon” appeared inevitable—until recently.
Rising public pressure, led by younger generations, is feeding a growing
awareness of the looming climate crisis. When combined with government
action and private innovation, this is leading to major changes in the financial
system, increasing the prospect of a transition to a net-zero economy.
A more sustainable financial system is being built. It is funding the private
sector innovation, it has the potential to amplify the effectiveness of the gov-
ernment climate policies, and it could accelerate the transition to a net-zero
economy.
But the task is large, the window of opportunity is short, and the risks are
existential.
Changes in climate policies, new technologies, and growing physical risks
will prompt reassessments of the values of virtually every financial asset.
Firms that align their business models with the transition will be rewarded
handsomely. Those that fail will cease to exist.
The changes required are enormous. To get on track for net zero by 2050,
carbon emissions will have to be cut in half from 2010 levels over the next
decade. This will require a massive reallocation of capital, creating unprec-
edented risks and opportunities. As one example, investment in the energy
sector will need to be $3.5 trillion each year to achieve this goal.
To bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial deci-
sion-making, climate disclosure must be comprehensive, climate risk
xxxiiFOREWORD
One example of such risk analysis is stress testing. The Bank of England is
the first regulator to stress test its financial system against different climate
pathways, including the catastrophic business-as-usual scenario and the
ideal—but still challenging—transition to net zero by 2050, as well as the late
FOREWORD xxxiii
Stress tests and scenario analysis will size the exposures of financial firms and
the financial system to climate risk, reveal the challenges to business models
and the implications for the provision of financial services, and help develop
and mainstream cutting-edge risk management techniques. New concepts,
such as Climate VaR and stranded asset sensitivities, could become increas-
ingly commonplace.
But the risks from climate change are only half the story. The transforma-
tion to a low-carbon economy will also bring enormous opportunities. As I
noted, energy infrastructure investments could double to $3.5 trillion every
year for decades. There will be huge opportunities for new technologies, from
advanced materials to carbon capture, AI, and reinventing protein.
Investments of this scale cannot be financed in niche markets. So, although
they are important catalysts, specialist investments like green bonds and tran-
sition bonds will not be sufficient to finance the transition to a low-carbon
future. Indeed, such securities accounted for only 3% of global bond issuance
in 2018.
To date, approaches to measuring and managing the financial implications
of climate change have been inadequate, such as carbon footprints (which
are not forward-looking), divestments (which only focus on the most car-
bon-intensive sectors), green investments (which are challenging to bring to
scale and often overlook transition sectors) or shareholder engagement (with
results that are difficult to measure).
For sustainable investment to go truly mainstream, it needs to do more
than exclude incorrigibly brown industries and finance new, deep-green tech-
nologies. Sustainable investing must catalyze and support all companies that
are working to shift from brown to green. We need approaches which capture
xxxivFOREWORD
“Fifty Shades of Green.” The mainstreaming of such strategies and the tools to
pursue them are essential.
That will require forming judgments about transition pathways in different
sectors and the effectiveness of company strategies relative to both techno-
logical possibilities, the strategies of their competitors, the rapidly evolving
expectations of their clients, and the evolution of climate regulation.
Promising options include the development of transition indices com-
posed of corporations in high-carbon sectors that have adopted low-carbon
strategies, and estimates of the “warming potential” of portfolios.
Such a forward-looking measure can help asset owners and managers
understand the transition pathway of their assets and develop strategies to
align financial flows toward the Paris Agreement target.
And they could have a number of ancillary benefits. They will signal to
governments the transition path of the economy, and therefore the effective-
ness of their policies. They can empower consumers, giving them more choice
in how to invest their savings and pensions. No longer will they be limited to
a choice between risk and return, but also a choice in how best to support the
transition.
With our citizens demanding climate action, it is becoming essential for
asset owners to disclose the extent to which their clients’ money is being
invested in line with their values.
************************
Short-termism
It is no secret that much of the business world is based on short-term thinking.
Business objectives are often short-term and so are the resulting incentives
and performance metrics (see Levin et al., Chapter 2). In 2015, Mark Carney,
Governor of the Bank of England, gave a famous speech on the need to break
the Tragedy of the Horizon when dealing with the impacts of climate change.
Carney (2015, p. 4) argued:
This book was inspired by Carney’s reflections on the Tragedy of the Horizon.
We believe that sustainable investing can only progress once we address this
Tragedy. What the contributors of this volume try to do is to chart what Carney
(2019) in a later speech called “a path to a New Horizon.” Such a path refers to
those steps that we can take to break with those problems that are attached to
the Tragedy of the Horizon. Paul Polman and Halla Tómasdóttir (Chapter 10)
address the problem of short-termism directly. They discuss what corporations
can do to move financial markets to longer-term thinking. They highlight that
firms need to first of all focus on the broader stakeholder network in which they
are embedded—a network that reaches beyond a sole focus on investors. They
also discuss the need to escape from quarterly reporting—a step that was taken
successfully by Unilever in 2009.
A recent survey by FCLTGlobal (2019) revealed that global corporations
are less long-term-oriented than they were before the 2007/08 financial crisis.
One key driver of this lack of long-term orientation is an overdistribution of
capital in the form of buybacks and dividends. Firms that tend to return money
to shareholders instead of safeguarding the money for other uses (e.g., long-
term investments) generated lower returns on invested capital. Interestingly,
the study also finds that the existence of many ESG controversies in a com-
pany can impede long-term value creation. By contrast, a diversified board
(in terms of gender and age) contributed to higher long-term value creation.
What these results show is that a path to a new horizon can take many shapes.
One key ambition of this book is to explore some of them.
argued that a traditional division of labor among societal actors reaches its
limits under a “postnational constellation”—that is, a situation in which the
steering capacity of state authorities remains limited because social and eco-
nomic activities reach beyond the territorially bound national or regional
jurisdiction (see also Rasche, 2015). In other words, we face gaps in gov-
erning (global) business activities—gaps which are unlikely to be closed by
inter-governmental action alone. Such governance gaps are by no means a
recent phenomenon; they have been part of the debate for many years. What
is new, however, is that we need to start thinking about how the existence of
these gaps enables and constrains sustainable investing.
Sustainable investing is affected by this post-national constellation in a
number of ways. First, some of the problems that ESG practices try to address
result from governance gaps and failures. On the global level, topics like cli-
mate change or water sustainability deal with common pool resources and
therefore require truly global coordination. Sustainable investing is one way to
work towards such coordination. Financial markets are knowing few borders;
they are a global phenomenon operating at an enormous scale and scope. This
makes them a strong actor that can acknowledge and address problems that
reach beyond the nation state. Financial markets can coordinate and com-
mand resources across borders, and it is this flexibility that allows sustainable
investing to make a contribution to address some of the problems ESG is
concerned with. Second, and relatedly, sustainable investing is based on an
institutional infrastructure that relies to a large degree on voluntary initiatives
and standards (e.g., the PRI, TCFD, SASB). Such a “soft law” approach not
only enhances the flexibility and pace of solution-finding, it also increases
the legitimacy attached to ESG practices. Legitimacy in a post-national con-
stellation relies on interactions among a broad set of stakeholders (Scherer,
Rasche, Palazzo, and Spicer, 2016). A number of the voluntary ESG initiatives
are based on such multi-stakeholder thinking where businesses together with
governments and civil society actors engage in solution-finding.
also geographic location (European firms tend to receive higher ratings than
US peers). All of this is not to suggest that we do not need ESG ratings. Rather,
it shows that we still have a long way to go to standardize ratings in a way that
they become more comparable.
Tadema, Alma, 82
Taylor, Tom, editor of Punch, 111
Teck, Duchess of, 6, 117
Teck, Prince Francis of, 116; death, 117
Tennant, Laura, 135
Tenniel, Sir John, cartoons in Punch, 91
Tennyson, Lord, death, 45; Becket, 96
Terriss, William, 214; career, 194; stabbed, 195
Terry, Ellen, 28, 29, 30, 60, 156, 202, 214, 235; on the characteristics of
Charles Reade, 102
Terry, Fred, 212
Terry, Kate, 156
Thackeray, W. M., 34, 103; Vanity Fair, 107
Thompson, Sir Henry, 68, 135, 136; portrait, 79
Thornton, C. I., 120
Tichborne trial, 59, 71
Toole, J. L., 7; story of, 192
Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm, 14, 119, 198; manager of the Haymarket, 199;
characteristics, 200; knighthood conferred, 200
Trollope, Anthony, 102
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