Author's Contributions
Annual General Meetings (AGMs) 2024: dispute about shareholder rights
We also supported numerous shareholder motions during this year’s Annual General Meeting season. However, there were also occasional disagreements regarding motions and fundamental shareholder rights.
Anti-ESG? Investors positioning themselves
Although environmental and social issues dominated the shareholder resolutions in this year’s voting season, their approval by investors declined. There are many reasons for this. In any case, Erste AM is increasing its support for environmental and social motions.
Biodiversity & nature: how can we integrate them?
At Erste AM, we have been dealing with sustainable investment for many years and have also included biodiversity agendas in our considerations. With our new biodiversity guideline, these issues are to be integrated even more formally into our processes. In addition, we are defining concrete biodiversity goals in the investment process that we want to achieve by 2030.
Inflation Reduction Act: what’s next?
The Inflation Reduction Act is designed to get the US back on track in terms of climate protection. What will the law achieve and who could benefit from it? Senior Research Analyst Stefanie Schock addresses these questions in her article.
Club of Rome: “The biggest problem of our time is our inability to distinguish fiction from fact”
In 1972, the Club of Rome published its first analysis of the “Limits to Growth”. Fifty years later, the non-profit organisation asks in a book whether green growth is possible at all.
Cyber-Roundup 2022: Tesla shareholders demand action on social issues
At the beginning of August, this year’s Tesla Annual General Meeting took place under the name “Cyber Roundup”. The number of shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues reached a new maximum this year.
What does the “S” in ESG stand for?
As a sustainable investor, Erste Asset Management has been dealing with social indicators in the evaluation of companies and countries for more than ten years. But how are these social aspects addressed and what do they mean?
Greenwashing through lobbying?
In recent years, environmental and social issues were voted on at the annual general meetings of global companies. Increasingly, the focus was on more transparency regarding lobbying and political contributions.
Sixth progress report of the IPCC: Physical risks of global warming
In August 2021, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published a report on global climate change. One of the key messages is that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, land areas and oceans. Heat waves, precipitation and the resulting soil moisture were identified as relevant physical risks.
Ørsted AS: Best Practice and Environmental Leader
According to our evaluation, the Danish Ørsted AS is among the leading companies in the environmental sector, which results from a radical transformation of the business model that the company has gone through in the recent decade. Whereas ten years ago the company produced 85% of its energy from fossil fuels and only 15% from […]
Time is running out
Many of the companies in the utilities sector have so far failed to implement a comprehensive decarbonisation strategy. Utilities sector: assessment & engagement According to the analysis by our partner MSCI, less than half of the companies in this sector[1] have set themselves goals such as the ones required for the containment of climate warming […]
Automotive Sector: Engagement and Voting
VW is no longer part of the responsible funds. Reasons for this are the use of cheating software and animal testing.
TESLA: no investment in environmental funds
Tesla Inc. is not part of the sustainable investment universe of our environmental fund, ERSTE WWF STOCK ENVIRONMENT, which is also the oldest one of the sustainable range of Erste AM and is subject to strict criteria. The underlying rationale of the fund is to invest in products or technologies with particularly high environmental utility […]
Pesticides, Animal Feed and Meat Consumption – The Food Revolution
The last article in our dossier on “Meat”: What role do animal feed and pesticides play for the environment and the climate?
How organic is the vineyard?
Everybody is talking about organic wine. Commercials claim it is better for the environment, because the conservation-minded way of handling nature safeguards the habitat of a diverse range of organisms.
“Disposable plastic is mostly responsible for plastic waste in the seas”
Interview with Axel Hein, marine expert at WWF Austria.
Plastic in our Environment
The world consumes resources more quickly and at larger quantities than our population is growing.