Past SSF Events 2018

Nachhaltige Anlagestrategien leicht gemacht? Neue Instrumente der PRI für institutionelle Anleger

Zurich, 17 April 2018

On 17 April, Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), highlighted how sustainable investment practice evolves and which path Swiss institutional investors are taking. Sabine Döbeli (CEO, SSF) and Dustin Neuneyer (Head of Continental Europe, PRI) welcomed around 100 participants, followed by a presentation of the PRI AO Investment Strategy Guide and the Manager Selection Guide, held by PRI’s Director of Investment Practices and Reporting, Kris Douma. The latter noted in particular, that real world impacts need to be taken into account as a third dimension, when setting a risk/return profile for investment. To complement the theoretical guidelines with a practical example, Marcel Metry (Head Equity & Investment Process, BVK Personalvorsorge des Kantons Zürich) laid out how BVK implements an engagement and exclusion strategy, combining norms-based screening and product-based exclusions. Due to their broad base of beneficiaries in terms of values, a suitable norm consensus is Swiss Law as well as the ILO Conventions.

Presentation of Kris Douma

Presentation of Marcel Metry

In the following panel discussion, Marcel Metry, Lukas Riesen (Partner, PPC Metrics), Reto Portmann (CEO, ZKB Pension Fund) and Marc Hänni (Head of Swiss Equities, Vontobel Asset Management) discussed questions raised both by the moderator Dustin Neuneyer and the audience. The panelists agreed that the inclusion of material ESG criteria is already becoming best practice in the financial sector, though the time horizon plays an important factor in determining materiality. Clients have expedited this change as they now approach asset managers with a basic understanding of ESG investing, unlike five years ago.

The question of passive sustainable investment was also discussed, where a majority of the panelists were of the opinion that the decision whether to invest active or passive is independent from the sustainability topic. Given that sustainability indices have a high turnover due to their changing composition, some even considered investing according to those indices to be a form of active investment. As long as an organization only chooses to do engagement however, a passive strategy, working with traditional indices, was seen as a suitable basis. Finally, the panelists mentioned that the Paris Agreement, now ratified in Switzerland, would also have an impact on the norms basis of Swiss investors, meaning climate change figures such as CO2 emissions will increasingly have to be included in the investment process.

Download PRI Asset Owner Strategy Guide

Download PRI Asset Owner Manager Selection Guide

Launch event: English edition of SSF Handbook on Sustainable Investments, co-published with CFA Institute Research Foundation

Zurich, 27 February 2018

At the Launch of the English Handbook on Sustainable Investment for Asset Owners, SSF, the CFA Institute Research Foundation and the CFA Society Switzerland hosted 140 finance professionals interested in responsible investment. The audience was welcomed by Sabine Döbeli (CEO, SSF) and Christian Dreyer (CEO, CFA Society Switzerland).

In the first part of the event, Joachim Klement (Trustee of the CFA Institute Research Foundation and Head of Investment Research, Fidante Capital) underscored the importance of the collaboration of CFA and SSF, which will help promote educational material on sustainable investment in the CFA community. Afterwards, Alexander Zanker (Senior ESG / Quant. Strategist, LGT Capital Partners) presented a concise overview on academic research on the influence of ESG factors on financial performance. The vast majority of studies showed a neutral to positive effect of good sustainability performance on financial metrics. The following presentation by Rainer Baumann (Head of Investment Management and Member of the Executive Committee, RobecoSAM) then provided the audience with a concrete example, on how a company can integrate ESG criteria into all investment decisions. For a sound integration, consistent data on material ESG metrics is key.

Download Sabine Döbeli's presentation

Download Alexander Zanker's presentation

Download Rainer Baumann's presentation

In the second part of the event, Sabine Döbeli moderated a panel featuring Johanna Köb (Head Responsible Investments, Zurich Insurance Company), Kaspar Hohler (Editor in Chief VPS) and Joachim Klement on how regulatory pressure changes the way institutional asset owners view sustainable investment. The experts brought forward that Swiss pension funds increasingly start to adopt sustainable investment policies, partly due to public pressure, partly in an attempt to prevent the need for regulation. The topic has not won as much traction as it could have due to the scattered pension fund landscape in Switzerland, characterised by numerous small players, who do not necessarily prioritise the issue due to resource constraints. Yet, the concept of fiduciary duty has clearly widened to include the integration of ESG criteria in investment decisions.

Amongst other barriers to responsible investment, the panellists mentioned tenacious myths on inferior performance of sustainable investment, limited education on ESG criteria as well as a cautious attitude on the topic by investment advisors. The latter do not have sufficient incentives to actively promote the uptake of sustainable investment strategies, given their clients are often bound to short-term performance targets. While public discourse predominantly revolves around the “E” of ESG integration at the moment, the panellists agreed that a sole focus on climate change was not in the interest of institutional investors. However, managing sustainability risks, with climate change being an urgent topic, was viewed as crucial for future success. Finally, the discussion showed that the SDGs offer a suitable framework to demonstrate investment impact.

To conclude the event, Sabine Döbeli and Christian Dreyer jointly unveiled the English Handbooks and handed a copy to all participants.

Download the event program

Download the English Handbook on Sustainable Investments

Inspiring investment partnerships to achieve global goals

Zurich, 16 January 2018

At SSF's first international conference in Zurich on 16 January, some 240 participants from 12 countries seized the opportunity to inform themselves about innovative partnerships for development investments. Please view the full event program for detailed information on the event. Also visit the event website for speaker profiles.

 After the welcome notes of Jean-Daniel Gerber, President, Swiss Sustainable Finance and Ambassador Raymund Furrer, Head of the Economic Cooperation and Development Division, SECO, keynote speaker Karin Finkelston, Vice President Partnerships, Communications, and Outreach at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), presented concrete examples illustrating how private investment can improve livelihood while delivering attractive returns. (View IFC video on partnerships in Burkina Faso and Karin Finkelston's full keynote).

Following the keynote were two expert panel discussions. In the first panel, Challenging the public sector - What role do Development Finance Institutions play in mobilising private capital, Claudia Arce (Director of South Asia, KfW), Orlando Ferreira (Chief Strategy Officer, IDB Invest), Ivo Germann (Head of Operations of Economic Development Cooperation Directorate, SECO) and Nick O’Donohoe (CEO, CDC Group) discussed with the moderator Maria Teresa Zappia (Chief Investment Officer, BlueOrchard) the role of development finance institutions in mobilising private capital. (View the full panel discussion)

The second panel, moderated by Sabine Döbeli (CEO, SSF), brought in the views of the private sector with Ivo Menzinger (Head of Global Partnerships, Swiss Re), Christophe Nuttall (Executive Director, R20 Regions of Climate Action), François Perrot (Head of Affordable Housing & 14Trees Ltd, LafargeHolcim) and Manuel Rybach (Global Head of Public Affairs and Policy, Credit Suisse) reviewing their efforts with respect to partnerships and investments towards development. (View the full panel discussion)

To prepare participants for the afternoon, Wiebke Bartz-Zuccala, Policy Analyst and Haje Schütte, Head Financing Sustainable Development Division from the OECD set the stage by introducing their research and perspectives on partnership models in blended finance. (Video of the full presentation)

Download OECD presentation

During the afternoon breakout sessions, six examples of targeted partnerships for investments for development illustrated the opportunities resulting from such cooperations. De-risking through development banks, government technical assistance, local industry knowledge of companies, and financing of advisory programs by foundations or other partners help create investment tools contributing to achieve the SDGs while generating attractive returns. All breakout session presentations and summaries can be downloaded below.

To close the day, Ulrich Frei (Executive President, FUNDES Internacional) animated the audience with the history of how FUNDES evolved from a purely philanthropic entity to a self-sufficient, profitable and mission driven endeavor, providing solutions to micro and small enterprises in Latin America. He went on to elaborate on the extensive and structured partnership evaluations that were utilized during the company's transition phase. The key learnings he presented were perfect take-away messages for the conference delegates to end the day. (View the full keynote speech)

Download FUNDES presentation

Download the summaries of all breakout sessions

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