Sustainability is a strategic priority for Wellington and an integral part of our long-term mindset and commitment to our clients. Recent market volatility has heightened our focus on continuing to find ways to deliver strong long-term investment results for clients, and sustainable investing is one key component of our approach.
We believe sustainable investing will shift capital markets over the next 20 years, affecting security prices across regions and asset classes, and therefore, the portfolios we manage on behalf of our clients. Our long-standing goal is to drive excellence for clients, in part by building a sustainability edge that is research-based, credible, future facing — and squarely focused on delivering superior investment results. To that end, we continue to make significant investments to enhance best practices and bolster our sustainable investment platform and corporate sustainability efforts. Here, we provide an update and outlook for the balance of the year, centered on our sustainability pillars of integrated research, innovative investment strategies, influential engagement, and industry leadership.
Please see more details on notable highlights for 2022 across our sustainable investment platform:
Integrated research: Our four-year research partnership with Woodwell Climate Research Center studying physical climate risks continues in earnest. This year, we are exploring ways to broaden our research to include the risks associated with biodiversity loss, an area of increasing concern to our clients.
In January of this year, we entered into a new collaboration with the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to bolster our current research on the transition to a low-carbon economy, enhance our understanding of the expected financial impacts of various transition pathways on industries and economies, and amplify our decarbonization engagement practices.
Innovative investment strategies: We continue to expand offerings within our four sustainable investment categories: impact, climate change, ESG forefront, and sustainable thematic. Within impact investing, we are building our impact measurement and management practice. Our climate investing suite continues to grow amid a growing opportunity set and our deepening capabilities in this area.
Influential engagement: Stewardship engagements continue to play a vital role. We see active ownership as a means of delivering sustainable, competitive investment returns for clients. Throughout 2021 and the first half of 2022, while encouraging constructive dialogue with companies and emphasizing management accountability, we tracked engagements and achieved a number of positive outcomes on major priorities, including strengthening climate resilience, addressing board diversity, and aligning executive compensation with shareholder outcomes.
As part of our stewardship efforts, we also seek to promote diversity at the companies in which we invest. We know that we must hold ourselves to the same standards if we are to evolve, grow, and improve. We have become signatories of the Corporate Call to Action and voiced our support for EEO-1 reporting, demonstrating our fundamental belief that increased transparency regarding diversity data creates accountability and allows our firm and our industry to measure progress.
Industry leadership: Our participation and leadership in sustainable organizations has deepened, in an effort to move our industry forward. We continue as an active participant and founding member of the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, which, as of this writing has US$57.5 trillion committed from 236 signatories worldwide. As of 31 March 2022, we are pleased to report US$436 billion client assets aligned with achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. At this writing, more than 32% of our total assets under management are now on track for net zero.
In June, we wrote a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), commending its recent proposed ruling to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures — an action we had advocated for in a 2021 letter to the SEC. Accurate and comparable information about climate risk is critical to our ability to make informed investment decisions on behalf of our clients. Because climate change will continue to profoundly impact society, economies, and markets, investors need more information to better price these risks and fully assess the value of an issuer’s securities. Currently, our evaluation of the positive and negative impacts of climate change on issuers is limited by inadequate information and the absence of a standardized framework for disclosure. The SEC’s proposal represents a strong step toward providing investors with the information they need to make informed investment decisions.
Within our corporate operations, our WellSustain program remained focused on aligning with best practices for reducing our firm’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and overall carbon footprint; strengthening our emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and engaging with local communities to advance positive financial, social, and environmental outcomes.
As part of this approach, we entered into a virtual power purchase agreement (PPA) with Enel Green Power in 2021. Our purchase of 11 megawatts (MW) of capacity at Enel’s Rockhaven Wind Project in Oklahoma in the western US will produce more than 48,000 MWh of electricity per year, enough to match 100% of electricity use from our US offices and US employees’ home use each year.
As always, we look forward to continuing to build out our sustainable investment capabilities in pursuit of better investment outcomes for our clients in 2022.
Equity Market Outlook
Continue readingBy
Andrew Heiskell
Nicolas Wylenzek