资产管理人员“在ESG的全部”

ESG investing — the practice of incorporating so-called nonfinancial factors such as environmental, social and governance issues into investment portfolios — has gotten a bit of a bad rap in terms of performance. But Matthew Sherwood, senior manager for public markets investments at the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board (MMBB), disputes the notion that ESG investments underperform their non-ESG counterparts, and now he’s got the numbers to prove it.

Sherwood, who is also a member of the investment committee and ESG working group for the Plan Sponsor Council of America and lectures on ESG investing at the King’s College in New York, recently coauthored a new paper on ESG equity strategies in emerging markets, which looked at the relative performance of the MSCI Emerging Markets ESG index versus non-ESG indexes. Sherwood found that institutional investors would have done better by investing in the emerging-markets ESG index, rather than its non-ESG counterpart, based on a 15 percent allocation of assets to emerging-markets equities from 2007 to 2016 (the average institutional investor allocation to emerging-markets equities, according to a2015 surveyfrom the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). The ESG-based index produced an annualized return of 2.69 percent over the period, while the non-ESG index returned 0.86 percent on an annualized basis. The overall portfolio return was increased by 0.4 percent annually with the use of the ESG index, compared with an increase of 0.13 percent annually if the non-ESG index had been used. For a $2 billion pension fund, that difference adds up quickly, amounting to a total of $5.49 million in assets over the nine-year period.

谢尔伍德说，不仅是基于ESG的表现统计上有意义，比非ESG指数返回的同期差异明显更大，而且比非ESG指数相比，这也是较低的挥发性。他最近与Matt Craig，全球内容总监Matt Craig谈过了机构投资者的投资者智能网络，了解他的发现。亚博赞助欧冠

亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者：在实施ESG投资策略方面，美国投资者如何与国际同行堆积起来？

Sherwood:U.S. investors are behind the curve on ESG issues. Many still only apply “sin stock” exclusions, avoiding investments in areas like tobacco, alcohol, gambling or pornography. Such a stand-alone, exclusion-based policy is an outdated way of looking at ESG investing, rather than looking at how ESG can add value for investors. ESG can be a positive force for investment outperformance, and it can also help investors understand companies, both as a research tool and as a risk management tool.

您热衷于看到ESG因素纳入MMBB的投资策略的研究和管理。为什么？

Over the long term (and everything else being equal), companies with a good ESG profile should increase in value above the market average. This result can be observed at an index level; the MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Index has been more attractive than the equivalent non-ESG index since its inception in terms of both risk and return. So, we can see how good ESG performance improves financial performance for stocks.

How is MMBB integrating ESG research into its investment processes?

我们正在寻找将ESG融入其投资方法的资产管理人员。我们并没有发射不考虑ESG的经理，但我们正在寻找甚至小迹象，这对他们来说是一个问题。例如，他们在投资公司时考虑到董事会层面的性别多样性吗？

You said that asset managers can be “all over the place” in their approach to ESG issues. In what way?

While negative screening, or exclusion-based investing, was the traditional use of ESG, additional dimensions of ESG investing have emerged, such as impact-driven, engagement-based, and integration-based. Sadly, in the current state the asset management community has not done a good job at producing sophisticated strategies for implementing ESG investing, and appears to use ESG as a marketing tool, rather than a mechanism for risk and research.

You have said that negative screening is an old-fashioned way of applying ESG beliefs, but there is a developing trend among large investors — and MMBB — to shun tobacco stocks. What do you make of this?

它是一种杀死客户的产品，这似乎对我来说看起来并不是一个声音的长期投资主张。想想过滤进入供水和下水道的所有烟头，产生致癌废物。它不仅仅是杀害客户;它还有其他负面方面。亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者在20世纪80年代作出了全球承诺，在于对抗种族隔离的斗争;烟草排除是一种类似的原因，因为饮用水对我们所有人都非常重要。

If tobacco ought to be excluded, where does that leave climate change–related companies?

我会排除，说，肮脏的石油和救球公司，但希望融合一些更环保的能源和天然气生产商。我宁愿与正在围绕减少碳效进行积极构建其商业模式的公司进行。

ESG数据如何对投资者有用？

In the same way that the equity options market gives you information on companies, so ESG can give insights into stocks. As such, ESG data provide significant cross-sectional information. I hope I can be a resource for other people, as the use of ESG by many investors still has some way to go.