Asset owners need the equivalent of the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) for investor engagement, according to François Humbert, engagement lead manager at Generali Investments.
Speaking during a side event at the PRI in Person annual conference in Brazil, Humbert, who is also a member of the Climate Action 100+ steering committee, said something like a Global Engagement Performance Standard could help asset owners evaluate asset managers’ engagement with corporates in a way that could encourage more effective action.
Citing discussions with companies, Humbert said that they identify different types of investor interaction with them, from basic dialogue to an approach that has a “spark effect”.
He said that, according to companies’ feedback, the bulk of investor corporate engagement activity is in the first bucket. Resourcing was a barrier for the “spark effect” type of engagement, he said, especially to the degree that it involved multiple stakeholders.
“This highest level of engagement is extremely time-consuming,” Humbert said. “There is no specific incentive from asset owners to asset managers to incentivise this additional effort. Today asset owners evaluate asset managers on quantity.
“Asset owners need to go the next step and think about how they want to incentivise quality, but they don’t have the tools for that.”
A Global Engagement Performance Standard could help, he said, in a reference to the influential GIPS.
The GIPS standards are maintained by CFA Institute in partnership with industry experts and sponsors from around the globe, and all of the top 25 asset managers globally claim compliance with the GIPS standards for all or part of their business.
CFA Institute has also rolled out GIPS standards for fiduciary management providers to UK pension schemes and has separately developed disclosure standards to make it easier for investors to compare ESG approaches used in investment products.
Earlier this year, the French Sustainable Investment Forum set up a taskforce, to which Humbert is contributing, to measure the effectiveness of engagement. It is aiming to issue its report in early 2026.
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