ESG Investing Roundtable

On June 15th, 2018, Probability & Partners organised a roundtable on the topics of ESG Investing. The event took place in George Marina in Amsterdam. It attracted a broad group of ESG and investment professionals, ranging from pension fund and asset managers, alternative investment funds managers and data providers. Thanks to the inspiring speakers and active participation of the varied and broad audience, the event was a great success and confirmed a growing interest in sustainable and impact investing.

The event has demonstrated that the topic of sustainable investing is gaining more importance, both in the investment management and regulatory communities. Nevertheless, there are still many issues to be resolved: from harmonizing ESG data to benchmarking and standardizing the ESG quantification to increasing the awareness of individual investors about sustainable investments.

The first speaker, Mr. Herman Mulder (the Head of the SDG charter of The Netherlands) talked about sustainable investing from the regulatory perspective. He indicated that companies are moving from ‘Do No Harm’ policies to more forward looking and proactive Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This move is encouraged (and will be legally enforced soon) by the action plan of the EU Commission on financing sustainable growth, formulated in April this year. Enforcement of this plan will create a need for standardization in terms of sustainable investment evaluation and reporting, which in turn calls for more research on ESG quantification, standardization and benchmarking.