Assets managed in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mandates by the 500 largest asset managers in the world rose by 23.3 per cent in 2018, in contrast to their overall assets under management (AUM), which were down 3 per cent from the previous year, according to the latest Global 500 research from the Thinking Ahead Institute.

By Jan Wagner – German wealth manager Metzler has instructed its portfolio managers to become certified in sustainable investing and is rolling out a new ESG toolkit as it fully embraces the strategy, says CIO Rainer Matthes (pictured).

Institutional investors in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom who apply environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles are committing more of their assets to this approach than ever before, according to the 2019 RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) Responsible Investing Survey.

RWC Partners has renamed its Defensive Convertibles Fund to the RWC Sustainable Convertibles Fund to reflect its quality focus and ESG awareness.

Pensioenfonds ING, a corporate pension fund based in the Netherlands with approximated EUR28 million and nearly 70,000 participants, has selected Robeco, a global asset management firm, as a partner in its sustainable investments policy.

Sycomore Asset Management (Sycomore AM) has broadened its range of SRI funds with the launch of SRI Next Generation, a fund with a focus on companies offering business models that are compatible with sustainable growth objectives.

Resonance British Wind Energy Income II, an authorised, close-ended investment fund focused on the wind farm sector in the UK and Ireland, has been launched as a Guernsey Green Fund.

Global institutional investors plan to divest 15.6 per cent of their portfolios from fossil fuels over the next ten years, almost tripling outflows of 5.7 per cent planned for next year, as high-profile activism on climate change gathers pace.

Morgan Stanley’s Global Sustain shows that even with a wide array of exclusions, an ESG fund can generate decent returns. Jan Wagner asks Global Sustain’s manager Bruno Paulson (pictured) how he achieved this and how the sustainable investment process at Morgan Stanley Investment Management works…

TOBAM, a Paris-based quantitative asset manager and founder of the Maximum Diversification approach, has been awarded the LuxFLAG ESG label to its full range of funds.