With a view to the Ukraine war, the multiple regions of crisis or the extreme inflation, one would be forgiven for thinking that sustainability issues were taking a back seat when it came to investing. Gerold Permoser, Chief Investment Officer of Erste Asset Management, claims that this is not the case and that there is a lot of potential for investors. In a recent press talk, he and Heinz Bednar, CEO, presented five key drivers for ESG investments.
Article on tag "Sustainability"
Sustainability and biodiversity: the strategy of voestalpine
Climate and environmental protection are central elements of voestalpine’s sustainability strategy. The conservation-minded use of resources such as raw materials and energy along the entire production chain has been firmly anchored within the group for years. Minimising the environmental impact of processes and products also plays a central role, as Stefan Schuster, Group Environmental Management at voestalpine AG, writes in his guest article.
A Tale of Two Companies: Bayer’s Biodiversity Conundrum with Monsanto
In 2018, Bayer acquired the US agrochemical and agricultural chemicals company Monsanto. However, the deal, valued at around USD 64 billion, raised a number of questions. As a result of the merger, Bayer has since found itself responsible for a number of controversial practices of the US company. This is associated not only with sustainability risks but also with a potential risk of billions through various class actions.
Turnaround in the Energy Market: Power Companies Raise Forecasts, Oil Companies’ Profits Drop
The decline in crude oil prices has led to a trend reversal in the energy market this year: while many power companies have recently raised their profit forecasts, the major oil companies suffered massively from the recent drop in crude oil prices. Meanwhile, in the effort to reach climate targets, the trend toward renewable energies continues unabate
Biodiversity – nature’s natural intelligence
The biodiversity crisis goes hand in hand with the loss of ecosystems and thus threatens our everyday life on earth. At the same time, despite all the crisis, we must not lose sight of the miracle of nature. Read more in the lead article of our new ESGenius Letter on the topic of “Biodiversity”.
Biodiversity: interview with ecologist Franz Essl
Franz Essl is an ecologist and a recognised expert on biodiversity and the protection of species diversity. In addition, he was named Scientist of the Year 2022 by the Club of Education and Science Journalists last year. In this interview, he explains what the term biodiversity encompasses and why politics and business must finally act to stop the loss of biodiversity.
Why biodiversity is on your agenda!
The biodiversity of our planet provides the basis for life and the economy. The crisis facing global biodiversity puts quality of life and health at risk, as well as prosperity and economic development. Companies can also act and take measures. After all, biodiversity is on everyone’s agenda.
Demystifying the greenness of funds
The taxonomy alignment of a fund is comparable to the nutritional information of food. Investors can thus find out transparently to what extent a fund invests in “green activities”. Find out more about taxonomy alignment and how we manage it in our funds in the blog post by Analyst Hebing Dong.
Voting – Impacting companies through voting rights?
By submitting shareholder proposals at annual general meetings and exercising voting rights, investors can lobby companies to take measures in the direction of social responsibility, environmental protection or better transparency. In the previous year, Erste AM exercised its voting rights at 495 companies. In the blog post, we show what this entails using three examples.
How our ESGenius App helps us to track engagements
With our self-developed “ESGenius” App, we can track and document our ESG activities such as engagements. Two current examples show how the app helps us improve our ESG performance.