1st Edition
Sustainable Investing A Path to a New Horizon
This book tells the story of how the convergence between corporate sustainability 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, including 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 contextual 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 sustainable 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.
Foreword by Mark Carney
1. Sustainable Investing: A Path to a New Horizon
Herman Bril, Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche
PART I: THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE INVESTING
2. Business and Sustainability, From the Firm to the Biosphere
Simon Levin, Martin Reeves and Ania Levina
3. Renewing Markets from Within: How Businesses and the Investment Community Can Drive Transformational Change
Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche
4. Good Governance: Navigating on Purpose and Complexity Based Principles
Theo Kocken and Stefan Lundbergh
5. The End of the Beginning: Next Generation Responsbile Investment
Fiona Reynolds and Nathan Fabian, with Rory Sullivan
6. Planetary Boundaries: A Compass for Investing for the Common Good
Johan Rockström, Almut Beringer, Beatrice Crona, Owen Gaffney and Daniel Klingenfeld
PART II: RETHINKING SUSTAINBLE FINANCE AND LEADERSHIP
7. Navigating the ESG World
Patrick Bolton, Simon Levin and Frédéric Samama
8. A New Age For Responsible Banking
Eric Usher
9. Corporate Purpose in Play: The Role of ESG Investing
John G. Ruggie
10. What Corporates Can Do to Move the Financial Markets to a Longer-Term and More Responsbile Mindset
Paul Polman and Halla Tómasdóttir
11. Embedding Values and Principles
Mark Moody-Stuart
PART III: SUSTAINABLE INVESTING, TECHNOLOGY, AND DATA
12. ESG and AI: The Beauty and the Best of Sustainable Investing
Omar Selim
13. FutureMakers and climate change modelling: method to the madness
Helga Birgden
14. Data Defense in Sustainable Investing
Ashby Monk, Marcel Prins and Dane Rook
PART IV: ACCELERATING TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE
15. Investing Sustainably: Transforming Asset Owners from Sayers to Doers
Keith Ambachtsheer
16. Building a Balanced and Scalable Strategic Asset Allocation to Meet Financial and ESG Impact Goals
Karen Karniol-Tambour, Carsten Stendevad, Daniel Hochman, Jacob Davidson, and Brian Kreiter
17. The Imperative of Sustainable Investing for Asset Owners
Herman Bril
18. Sustainable Investing: Shaping the Future of Theory and Practice
Herman Bril, Georg Kell and Andreas Rasche
Biography
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.
Andreas Rasche is Professor of Business in Society at the Centre for Sustainability at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and also acts as the Associate Dean for the CBS MBA program. He is Visiting Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics.
"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
"This is an engaging book encompassing a wealth of knowledge for anyone interested in sustainable investing: from the experienced investor who wants to better understand the field of sustainable investing to the intellectually curious business leader who wants to learn more about what it is and how it can be practiced." - George Serafeim, Harvard Business School
"This impressive book shows why market transformation is imperative and how business and finance can build a safe and livable future." - Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO Volkswagen AG
"This book argues convincingly that sustainable investing is becoming mainstream, as increasing numbers of asset owners, investment managers and companies take steps toward addressing longer-term challenges facing businesses and society. The question is not whether these commitments are welcome – they are – but whether they will be anywhere near enough to address our climate crisis and accomplish the Just Transition so necessary in the decade ahead." - Al Gore and David Blood, Generation Investment 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
