Events

Held online

22 APR 2021

In 2018, The Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) published ‘ESG: past, present and future’, a report that explored the definition of ESG, its interpretation by those involved in making decisions about investment strategy, as well as the drivers of and barriers to greater engagement with ESG factors.

The report found there to be a lack of consensus regarding how to define and implement ESG considerations, as well as barriers related to the resources available to smaller schemes. However, the report also highlighted that awareness and understanding of ESG was growing, as was the availability of off the shelf products that can make ESG investment more accessible to smaller schemes.

Two years on, awareness and understanding has continued to grow, particularly driven by the increased regulations that have come into force since then. However, there is still some way to go before all schemes are engaging with ESG risk-factors in a meaningful way in order to ensure that their members are adequately protected against long-term risks.

Following on from PPI’s previous work on ESG, this series explores the approaches available to schemes and the opportunities and barriers they may face in choosing and implementing an approach, with the aim of identifying areas where there may be a role for increased support from government and industry to enable greater engagement with ESG considerations.

Following on from Engaging with ESG: Climate Change, this final report in the series 'Engaging with ESG: Environmental, Social and Governance Factors' delves deeper into the investment landscape for other environmental, social and governance risks.

Many of the practical steps needed to extend effective integration of these risks mirror those identified in the first report. However, there are also lessons to be learned from the steps already taken to develop the integration of climate change risks, as well as specific areas to develop in terms of social and governance risks.

The Environmental, Social and Governance report is kindly sponsored by Newton Investment Management.

Click here to download the event write up