Investment Week is delighted to relaunch its Sustainable & ESG Investment Awards in 2020 at a key point in the evolution of this important part of the market.
Building on the proud 13-year history of these awards, Investment Week has given a fresh focus to the event and introduced a number of new categories, as well as extending our judging panel to better reflect the huge growth in this area of the market and the main interests of Investment Week readers.
These awards are intended to honour best-in-class fund providers, research and ratings teams and services providers who now have a key part to play as sustainable and ESG investing moves firmly into the mainstream.
This year we have bolstered the number of fund categories included in the awards with the introduction of Best Sustainable and ESG Equity, Bond, Multi-Asset and Alternatives categories.
To reflect a high level of interest in the environmental and climate change theme in 2020 and beyond, there are also new categories for Best Environmental/Climate Change Equity fund and Best Environmental/Climate Change Bond fund, while the Best Green Bond fund category is another new addition.
We then split the previous Best Impact Fund category into Best Impact Equity Fund and Best Impact Bond Fund categories this year.
We also introduced an award for the Best Fund Management Group for Sustainable and ESG Integration to reflect increased activity and interest in this area at a time of transition for many asset managers.
In addition, we want to highlight groups that are contributing to the evolution of this sector and setting the agenda for the coming years.
As a result, we are welcoming entries for the Best Sustainable & ESG Education Initiative and Best Thought Leadership Paper categories.
Meanwhile, we are acknowledging the growth in the services sector supporting ESG and Sustainable investing with new awards for Best Sustainable & ESG Research & Ratings Provider, Best Sustainable & ESG Service Provider, and Best Sustainable & ESG Index Provider.
Our Most Innovative Launch category is also open to entrants including products, portfolios, indices or services.
Finally, on an individual level we added the Outstanding Contribution to the Industry category, which will be decided by the judges.
Wider judging panel
In addition, our judging panel of industry experts has been extended to 20-strong this year to bring in a broader range of expertise, including more fund selectors specialising in this area, to decide the winners for the new categories.
To cover all the different types of investment strategies included in the awards, we added experts in the fields of risk, ESG, sustainability, impact, as well as research & ratings.
They are Dean Cook of Prudential, Tancredi Cordero di Montezemolo of Kuros Associates, Felicity Selcoe of Julius Baer, Lisa Beauvilain of Impax AM, Richard Romer-Lee of Square Mile, Veronique Morel of Raymond James, Sophie Meatyard of FE fundinfo and Hortense Bioy of Morningstar.
To help decide on the Best Thought Leadership Paper, we added academics such as Gianfranco Gianfrate of EDHEC Business School to the panel, as well as Julia Dreblow of SRI Services and Philipp Hirche of The WikiRate Project, alongside existing judge Lisa Stonestreet of the EIRIS Foundation. Their areas of expertise are Climate Change, ESG, Sustainability and Impact respectively.
The expertise of this panel will be invaluable in selecting the original thinking which may shape the future of the industry.
Award ceremony
Investment Week is proud to dedicate an entire day to the sustainable and ESG investing space. On 24 September, we will host the Sustainable & ESG Conference followed by the prestigious awards ceremony.
We look forward to welcoming and bringing industry experts and leaders together at these events.
Click here to find out more about this year's awards.
