ESG Investing

Is a passive fund management approach accordant with environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing?  The growth of both these trends has led to the question as to whether they are happy bedfellows.

From 17th Century tulip mania to the Dotcom bubble of the 1990s, asset bubbles are a recurrent economic feature, and the question as to whether ESG is “another bubble waiting to happen?” was recently posted on the EBI forum.

Harold Macmillan, the UK Prime Minister between 1957 and 1963 was reputed to have replied “events dear boy” when asked what the most likely thing would be to knock his government off course. With the increased focus on Sustainable and Socially Responsible investing it now seems that there is significant “event risk” involved in running a company in contravention of these principles and the bigger and more high profile it is, the more dangerous things can get. The world seems more than ever eager to take offense. What would once be dismissed as a joke or mild criticism is now portrayed as something akin to assault, regardless of the intent behind the statement. The resignation of Alastair Stewart in recent days as a result of a (somewhat concocted) row on Twitter with another user is but one in a long list of the famous who have been brought low by controversy.

EBI’s ESG-integrated portfolios are now live. To mark the launch and in the run up to 2020, it’s an opportune moment to look back at the series of ESG blogs we have run over the last few months and to summarise the key takeaways for financial advisers.Firstly, demand for passive solutions is soaring. As previously mentioned, an ETFGI report found that global ESG ETFs/ETPs assets increased by almost 30% in 2018 ($7.6 billion in net new assets) whereas assets in equivalent non-ESG funds grew by less than 5% in the same period.Is ESG therefore a fad, with ETF providers jumping on the bandwagon? As we’ve discovered, there are ETFs for almost every whim nowadays – including a ‘vegan’ ETF which still has a heavy proportion invested in tech stocks.

The concept of “satellite and core” is a key discussion among financial advisers when it comes to portfolio construction. In essence, core investments make up a bigger proportion of long-term invested assets, and tend to be passive funds, while the satellite can perhaps include some riskier or more exotic active investments for the shorter term and tactical plays.This model is designed to lower costs, be more tax efficient, minimise volatility and provide some opportunity to outperform the markets – and it can be applied across investment vehicles, strategies, and asset classes. (Although it’s not to be confused with the typical way we talk about equities versus bonds – say, 60% for the former and 40% for the latter for a typical medium-risk portfolio – because both are typically longer term.) And this is where ESG comes in. So, do you hold ESG at the core or satellite?

Fund providers have an almost miraculous ability to create products that follow the news cycle. Index-linked funds (due to worries around inflation), robots and automation (robots taking over our jobs) and gender diversity ETFs (tapping in to Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’ revolution). Gender diversity, hopefully, will be a lasting focus for investors, while internet-focused funds, which launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, had a seriously rocky start.No matter an investor’s principles and good intentions, ESG is prone to the same marketing whims and opportunism of fund providers as much as any other investment sector. And just like any other sector, ESG funds are also at risk of being overpriced, especially if a fund provider claims to launch a ‘first of its kind’ and therefore has no competition. ESG or not, a fund provider is a business, and its main aim is to profit.