SCHRODERS PLC 10/12/2020
10/12/2020
Schroders' Group Chief Executive, Peter Harrison, emphasised the importance of 'impact-adjusted profits' at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit this month.
Corporate disclosures on climate change were a focal point of the two-day summit where Peter highlighted the signficance of taking a more quantitative approach to measuring the impact of environmental and social events on earnings and investments.
Peter Harrison, Group Chief Executive, Schroders commented:
'Asset Managers need to be more aggressive in tracking the impact of environmental and societal events on corporate earnings and their investments.
'We are at a transformational moment in the history of the asset-management industry, and while investors once focused only on profits, we are now at a new juncture where we need to go a step further. Investors can use 'big data' to get a clearer picture of externalities that affect a company's bottom line.'
Speaking previously at Schroders' Digital International Media Conference, Peter Harrison, commented:
'I would argue we are now witnessing the start of a new megatrend; profits are not all created equally.
'The way that we need to view corporate profitability is through impact-adjusted profits. And where asset managers need to be judged is on impact-related performance, i.e. what is the investment performance after allowing for the externalities of that performance?'
Andy Howard, Global Head of Sustainable Investment, Schroders added:
'This has been a 'watershed' year for ESG investors, not least because it has forced them to pay greater attention to the role that companies play in society.
'Investors are making a greater connection between the impact that companies have within society and their financial performance.
'Companies' abilities to build strong relationships with their customers, with their employees, with the other stakeholders that they rely on is fundamental to the strength of their business and fundamental to their ability to remain competitive.
'We're seeing a lot of those things moving from being kind of nebulous ideas in some ways to being very tangible and real questions that we as investors have to ask of the companies that we invest in.'
Sarah Bratton, Head of Sustainability, North America, Schroders commented:
'It's clear that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to be felt globally long after the outbreak has passed. One positive outcome of the crisis however, has been the acceleration of ESG investing and in particular a shift in focus on the 'S' issues in 2020.
'If we take a further step back to 2019 there was massive impetus on the climate and the 'E' issues. This year we've seen a massive pendulum swing to a focus on the 'S' issues from Covid-19 to the broad ranging societal inequalities. I think 2021 will bring the pendulum back into the middle and we will see a lot more talk about how these issues are actually interlinked and impacting the most vulnerable amongst us.
'At Schroders we have made huge progress in fulfilling our commitment to achieving 100% ESG integration across all of our assets globally by the end of 2020. This, alongside our approach to active ownership means that investors can hold companies accountable to driving this positive change and meeting all of these ESG principles.'
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Schroders plc published this content on 10 December 2020 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 10 December 2020 11:14:06 UTC
