29 июня 2020 г.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles – the three key factors that measure the sustainability and public impact of investments – have become important criteria for forward-thinking investors.

As ESG-minded practices have grown in both importance and popularity in recent years, several ESG tracking indices have increased. To stay current with the trend, CFA Association Russia invited Nikita Pavlov, a Senior Sales Manager of Investment &  Advisory,CEE / CIS at Refinitiv, to give an overview of the ESG market and discuss ESG indices. 

“Currently, there are about 25 global indices that track at least one principle of ESG and about 10 companies that gather and analyze ESG data”, Nikita said.

Essentially, there are two types of companies that work with ESG data: the first type includes companies that gather and provide data, while the second type of firm analyze data and assign ratings to companies. Often what happens is the latter group of companies gets raw data from ESG data providers and then does their own analysis.

Nikita believes that eventually the ESG rating firms will conglomerate similar to credit rating companies, leaving about 5 major players in the market. In other words, we might see the emergence of large ESG rating companies akin to S&P, Moody’s and Fitch.

When it comes to the emerging markets, ESG principles are generally not at the forefront of investors’ agenda. In Russia and the CIS, for example, up until very recently investors would choose to put their money on companies solely based on the financial performance without any regard to ESG ratings. Fortunately, this is slowly changing, with more firms beginning to consider the sustainability factors and engaging in more forward-thinking investments, the speaker said.

“EGS is no longer a trend, but something that has become a key factor to consider,” said Nikita, adding that ESG principles are here to stay with us forever.

To watch a full video of Nikita’s presentation, as well as gain unlimited access to all videos from our previous events and seminars, consider joining the society using this link.

The views and opinions expressed during the presentation are those of the speaker’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of CFA Russia. To contact Nikita directly regarding the questions of ESG, please follow him on LinkedIn.

FULL VIDEO OF THE EVENT >>>