Digital library on sustainable finance
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This report assesses the current landscape of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration in the infrastructure investment space. It includes an overview of tools available to support investors and other actors in evaluating and quantifying ESG criteria and incorporating them into the infrastructure development and investment process.
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Valuing Sustainability in Infrastructure Investments: Market Status, Barriers and Opportunities - EN
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This guidance discusses how ESG factors may influence the forecasting of financials (modelling) in infrastructure investments.
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Guidance note on integrating ESG - factors into financial models for infrastructure investments - EN
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This report, part of the SSF focus publication series, provides a concise overview on existing practices to measure climate-related risks of investments in investment portfolios. The publication gives practical guidance for investors seeking to measure the climate risks of their portfolios. Finally, given the increasing focus on aligning portfolios with internationally agreed climate scenarios, the publication also discusses future developments in the field.
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Focus: Measuring Climate-Related Risks in Investment Portfolios - EN
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The WWF Pension Funds Rating 2018/2019 analyses and assesses the 20 largest pension funds in Switzerland (based on assets under management at the end of 2016). The WWF Pension Funds Rating was carried out for the second time as a way of initiating a regular dialogue with the participating pension funds and their stakeholder groups.
The full rating is available in German, with summaries in French, English and Italian.
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Swiss Pension Funds and Responsible Investment - DE
Swiss Pension Funds and Responsible Investment - FR
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This paper shows how passive funds can make a full contribution to mitigating climate change. As a growing number of institutional asset owners are divesting from coal assets, index funds are becoming the holders of last resort. The common wisdom has it that index funds cannot sell out of individual stock holdings. This paper investigates the relationship between index providers and index funds and finds the traditional understanding that index investors cannot sell to be false. Instead an increasing prevalence of index investors switching both indices and index providers is noted.
The paper also suggests a number of solutions for index funds to reduce the carbon intensity of their funds, such as switching the indices their funds employ, discontinuing niche ETFs that are carbon intensive, reducing fees on low-carbon investments, or making use of their financial clout, as index providers’ biggest customers, to advocate for selective index amendments.
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The core concepts of responsible investment are the consideration of ESG factors in investment decisions and investor stewardship, alongside a commitment to both corporate and investor transparency. Such concepts apply to all asset classes, but there are differences in the way practitioners implement responsible investment depending on whether they invest in public or private debt or equity, and in liquid or illiquid markets.
To date, little has been written about how investors can invest responsibly in private debt. This paper aims to promote better understanding of the rationale for responsible investment in the context of private debt investments, and is based on desk research, interviews with 18 investors and industry stakeholders, and group discussions among PRI signatories.
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This publication explores "the missing link” that exists between financial stability and environmental stability and is based on research conducted in 2017/2018 which was completed during the last OECD Forum on Green Finance and Investment. It discusses the role prudential authorities such as central banks, financial supervisory authorities, or standard setters, should play in assessing and mitigating climate-related risks.
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The_missing_link_Policy-Recommendations (pdf 2.7 MB)Summary
Along with the Swiss Pension Funds Rating 2018/2019, WWF Switzerland also published a guide for pension fund beneficiaries.
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Guide for pension fund beneficiaries - DE
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An updated and expanded study of Morningstar’s 56 unique ESG-screened indexes finds that performance across the range tends to be strong. They found that 41 of the 56 Morningstar’s ESG indexes outperformed non-ESG equivalents (73%) since inception.
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Morningstar's ESG Indexes Exhibit Attractive Investment Attributes - EN
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This publication is a sequel to the OECD 2015 report on Social Impact Investment (SII), Building the Evidence Base, bringing new evidence on the role of SII in financing sustainable development. It depicts the state of play of SII approaches globally, comparing regional trends, and assesses its prospects, with a special focus on data issues and recent policy developments.
Importantly, it provides new guidance for policy makers in OECD and non-OECD countries, as well as providers of development co-operation, development financers, social impact investment practitioners and the private sector more broadly, to help them maximise the contribution of social impact investing to the 2030 Agenda.
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Social Impact Investment 2019. The Impact Imperative for Sustainable Development. - EN
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Why has conventional capital market theory and the theory of finance ignored systematically ethics in the last decades? Are ethics and finance really counterparts? These and many other questions are tackled in the latest book of Prof. Dr. Henry Schäfer, which delivers an overarching discussion and analysis of the building blocks of modern capital market theory and an analysis of its hidden ethical content.
The book illustrates the significant degree of alienation between the financial and the real side of economies, stemming from the long-standing struggle between ethics and economics. Furthermore, it provides a roadmap of modern value thinking, highlighting the crucial role of stakeholders and non-governmental organizations.
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The EU Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance released a report on climate-related disclosures as an input into the revision of the guidance framing non-financial corporate disclosure in the EU.
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According to the 14th edition of World Economic Forum’s global risks report, environmental risks dominate the global risks landscape in terms of impact and likelihood for the third year in a row.
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The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published its first official statement setting out the importance of including ESG matters when disclosing information material to investors’ decisions.
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In the present study, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) looks into environmental and social risks to which financial institutions might be exposed, focusing on 25 large and medium-sized Dutch financial institutions.
The report explores the extent to which selected environmental and social challenges, not just related to climate change, pose risks to financial institutions. It also takes stock of the processes that financial institutions have set up to lend direction to their sustainability policies.
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Values at Risk? Sustainability risks and goals in the Dutch financial sector - EN
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The 8th edition of the Eurosif SRI study gives a detailed picture of the European SRI industry, covering institutional and retail investor from 12 European markets.
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The paper reviews the scope and nature of the financing gap for sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to propose new solutions for finance, business and a broader set of stakeholders. It builds on the Positive Impact Initiative’s earlier Manifesto (2015) and Principles for Positive Impact Finance (2017), clarifying the concepts of impact-based business models, impact-based economy and holistic impact analysis
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Do people put their pension savings on the table to promote sustainability? This paper answers the question in a large-scale field experiment (n = 3,256). The pension fund in the study gave its members a real vote for more or less sustainable investments. A comparison group made the same decision, but hypothetically. The paper finds that 66.7% of the participants favor to invest their pension savings in a sustainable manner.
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Get Real! Individuals Prefer More Sustainable Investments - EN
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Sustainable investment is gaining momentum in Europe, but its current proposed taxonomy might hinder innovation in the field. In this policy paper, Dirk Schoenmaker advocates for an active investment approach with concentrated portfolios, and sets out a six-point plan for sustainable investing.
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The 6th SWIRPA Corporate Governance Survey, conducted in cooperation with researchers at the DBF (UZH), covers developments in governance in the Swiss market. A total of 154 participants filled out the survey, representing more than 77% of the SPI market cap and 26% of global equity AuM.
A presentation of the finding is available for download.
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In order to help property investors develop and implement an impact-based approach in their investments, an action-oriented investor framework has been developed to help guide decisions at any stage of the property investment cycle.
This report focuses on four Investment Objectives which offer a way for institutions to frame decision-making for more immediate-term investment activities and longer-term aspirations that derive from Positive Impact’s holistic and impactbased approach.
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Combining corporate sustainability performance scores based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) data with big data measuring public sentiment about a company’s sustainability performance, this paper finds that the valuation premium paid for companies with strong sustainability performance has increased over time and that the premium is increasing as a function of positive public sentiment momentum. The evidence suggests that public sentiment influences investor views about the value of corporate sustainability activities
and thereby both the price paid for corporate sustainability and the investment returns of portfolios that consider ESG data.
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SSRN-id3265502 (pdf 572.0 kB)Summary
As a global financial centre with a growing strategic interest in sustainable finance, and a country recognized as a leader in digital technologies and innovation, Switzerland is seeking an improved understanding of how digital finance can accelerate the greening of financial flows. UN Environment, with support from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), undertook a stocktaking to map emerging green digital finance practices in Switzerland and globally in 2018. The paper provides options for a number of national and international actions that could be taken forward by different stakeholder groups.
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Green Digital Finance. Mapping Current Practice and Potential in Switzerland and Beyond - EN
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Much research has been done on the relationship between environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investing and performance in equity markets, but far less on its effect on the credit markets. This study into the behaviour of corporate bond portfolios showed that applying ESG factors resulted in a small but steady performance benefit and no evidence of a negative effect.
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This document contains answers to frequently asked questions regarding the work of the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (TEG) set up by the EU Commission, and the legislative proposals that frame its work.
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Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance – Frequently Asked Questions - EN
