Researchers finally getting to the bottom of ESG

As environmental, social and governance (ESG) research becomes more mainstream, researchers are branching out to cover more than just issues surrounding the environment.

At the ESG Research Australia’s awards ceremony, judges noticed the nominated ESG research covered a broader range of issues and looked at more of the social and governance parts of the ESG spectrum.

Other comments noted that while it was challenging to integrate such research into stock evaluations and macro strategy, the days of “merely ticking a few ESG boxes are clearly long gone”.

Chair of ESG Research Australia, Rob Fowler, said the need to objectively define what factors were material and how they could measurably affect investment performance had been an ongoing issue in the development of ESG research.

“In this year’s awards, it is clear that we are getting closer to research that has relevance to investment outcomes and can be applied and assessed in the same manner as other considerations that analysts look at in coming to their decisions,” he said.

The winner of the best piece of ESG research by an analyst or team went to Goldman Sach’s Hamish Tadgell and Jien Goh, while best ESG broking firm went to Citi for the second year in a row.