All Guest Viewpoint articles – Page 2
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Opinion Pieces
The art and science of investor collaboration in the quest for effective stewardship
In the evolving landscape of sustainable investment strategies, the significance of engagement has become more pronounced in recent years. Traditionally seen as supplementary to investment processes, stewardship has transformed into an indispensable tool for achieving meaningful environmental and social change.
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Solving Europe’s capital markets puzzle
The crucial role of capital markets has recently figured on top of several high-level reports on Europe’s economic priorities
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Opinion Pieces
Striking the right balance on pension funds and fiduciary duty
Pension fund investment principles, strategies and decision-making have all become more complex in the wake of the growth of sustainability factors in general and climate change in particular. This has made the interpretation and practice of trustee ‘fiduciary duties’ more vexed and challenging than ever. A recent review of fiduciary duties in the UK by the Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) put it this way: “It is sometimes easier to state the duties than it is to apply them.”
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Trump election agenda items for pension funds to debate
Peter Kraneveld identifies Trump’s election chances as an important political risk for pension funds
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: What if climate policy wasn’t ‘backsliding’?
Nothing screams policy forward-sliding like a solar sector unleashed, permanently beating scenario expectations
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Opinion Pieces
An opportunity to reimagine private capital in Europe
Enrico Letta’s long-awaited report on the future of the European Union’s single market is set to spark a major debate among EU leaders. As Europe faces a rapidly evolving strategic landscape, the former Italian prime minister’s findings, due to be published this spring, could help shape thinking on European integration ahead of the upcoming elections in June.
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: The SEC should not diverge on Scope 3
Reporting of value chain emissions, whether upstream such as purchased goods, or downstream – such as product use (think combustion of fossil fuels), will be abandoned
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Opinion Pieces
Pension funds’ FIDA problem must be solved
In June 2023, the European Commission put forward the Financial Data Access (FIDA) regulation, which is currently being discussed in the relevant Council working group and in the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: A challenging period for emerging market debt or a golden opportunity?
Despite the challenges posed by rising interest rates and the steep rise of the US dollar, none of the bigger emerging markets seem to be in debt distress
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Putting impact at the core of sustainable investment market stats
The question of whether sustainable investments actually make a difference was one of the reasons why Eurosif revised its methodology for its market studies
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Why profitability may be the greatest quality
Research shows that a company’s current profitability is a powerful predictor of its future cash flows
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Investor climate scenarios need to be probability-aware
Riccardo Rebonato, of EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute, argues that climate scenarios need to come with probabilities if they are to be useful for investors
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Opinion Pieces
Cross-border pensions: a better taxation model
When members of the European Union accession generation from central and eastern European (CEE) countries were young they used to dream of visiting Santa Claus in Lapland. As travel abroad was not permitted and communications were not developed, they wrote letters and waited impatiently for their presents to arrive.
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Opinion Pieces
Why DC pensions should choose private equity as first step into illiquids
Governments, regulators, central banks and even trustees are talking about illiquid investments and the productive economy. This is correctly driven by an underlying belief that illiquid assets can improve overall portfolio risk-adjusted returns. But most importantly, if defined contribution (DC) trustees are already keen to get behind productive finance, where do they start if they currently allocate nothing to illiquids?
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Unequal voting rights must be phased out
Weakening protections around dual class share structures will not deliver the desired benefits
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Opinion Pieces
Securities litigation can be worth the effort
Pension funds and other institutional investors face an uphill challenge when it comes to managing their investor action responsibilities.
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Opinion Pieces
Irish pensions auto-enrolment is a worthy challenge
Irish citizens are set to get a retirement boost following the government’s decision to implement its auto-enrolment retirement savings scheme in 2024. That is, if all goes to plan. Under the proposed scheme, which has been a topic of debate in Irish politics for at least 15 years, employees will have access to a workplace pension savings scheme that is co-funded by their employer and the state.
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: Why we closed Net Zero Now to new employers despite its popularity
A change in the consensus around the role of offsetting to achieve net zero was one consideration, explains UK master trust Cushon’s director of policy and research
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: A response to ISSB’s Faber’s ‘triple illusion’ criticism of double materiality
Frédéric Ducoulombier, of EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute, says the ISSB chair straw-mans the positions of advocates of the EU ESRS’s double materiality
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Opinion Pieces
Viewpoint: To outsource, or not to outsource? The rise of OCIOs
OCIO is a trend being encouraged by market volatility, increased portfolio intricacy, and the growing burden of regulatory compliance