Decoding the G of ESG

At COP26 last week, the IFRS Foundation announced a new body that from 2022 will set international standards for sustainability disclosure to prevent greenwashing.

The expansive and undefined nature of ESG investing has been the biggest criticism levelled at the movement. To address this, the industry has made an increasing number of attempts to formalise and standardise the rules. Often, the hardest of the three sustainable elements to define is ‘governance'. This was made quite clear when earlier this year the FRC revealed who had made the ‘UK Stewardship Code Signatories 2020' list. Of the 189 applications they received - including 147 asset managers, 28 asset owners (including pension funds and insurers), and 14 service providers - a third fail...