That variant of “socially responsible” investing known as ESG (companies are measured against various environmental, social, and governance guidelines) has, to put it mildly, its problems, not least that the standards it sets can be, how to put it, a little mysterious.
JPMorgan is set to remove Russia from the environmental, social and governance (ESG) versions of its emerging market bond indexes, while it continues to review the country’s ejection from its widely used emerging debt benchmarks.
Only a cynic would think that the reason for this move may owe just a little to PR — and to the fact that these securities have become very hard to trade.
It’s still not unreasonable to ask, however, what that paper was doing in that index in the first place.
I cannot help wondering if Chinese bonds continue to feature.
Meanwhile (via the Financial Times):
Calpers, one of the world’s largest public pension plans, has around $900mn exposure to Russia, after increasing its emerging market allocation last November to boost chances of reaching its return targets.
Ultra-low interest rates will do that.
Nevertheless, this CalPERS?
Our Sustainable Investments team supports the Investment Office by providing expertise and support for significant environmental, social & governance (ESG) risks and opportunities that can affect our investments. We serve as the central hub for research and communication of sustainable investment insights and methodologies across our organization.
Seems so.
This CalPERS?
A group of global private equity firms and pensions funds managing over $4 trillion in assets said on Thursday they have agreed to standardize reporting on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance of portfolio companies.
The group, led by Carlyle Group and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), will track data on greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, board diversity and other metrics of companies in their portfolio.
Yup.
Back to the FT:
The biggest western holders of Russian sovereign debt are funds controlled by German insurer Allianz, the New York investment firm BlackRock, Californian money management groups Capital and Western Asset Management and Vanguard, according to fund filings compiled by Bloomberg. Together these five investors own about $7.4bn of Russian bonds.
Interesting.