If 2022 and, indeed, all bear markets in the past taught us anything, it’s that investors must be resilient. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Thu Ha Chow knows a thing or two about this, having lived in a refugee camp as a child. Once she graduated with a degree in economics, it led her to work with impoverished children in Asia, before embarking on a career in finance.
Her natural inclination to use the power of finance to create a better world drew her towards sustainable investing, and ultimately to Robeco, where she now runs the Asian fixed income team. One of her team’s strengths is using Robeco’s SDG Framework to find the bonds of companies that can make a positive contribution to the goals.
“Without SI, I don’t know if I’d want to continue working in this industry – before that, if it was just about alpha and outperformance,” Thu Ha says. “Everything came together for me, personally and professionally, with the SDGs. From an economic development perspective, achieving the SDGs enables you to build resilient economies and businesses.”
A common language
The SDGs were conceptually developed to be applied to countries, but thanks to internal research, they are now also applicable to companies. “This was a big step that had to be taken,” she says. “The SDGs are hugely important because they give us a language. Without this common language, everyone would mean something different when they talked about SI.”
It is an illusion to think, however, that investment portfolios can make a positive impact on all 17 SDGs, let alone on all the 169 sub-goals. “Due to the nature of the companies in which you invest, you always have a bias toward a limited number of SDGs,” Thu Ha says. “Because they are designed to apply to countries, you can’t tick every box at the company level.”
The market mechanism
Are the SDGs though opposed to the spirit of capitalism? Thu Ha takes a philosophical approach. “The aspect of capitalism we deal with is the market mechanism, which is essentially a mechanism to efficiently distribute resources. However, as a society, we need to set goals for what the resources need to achieve. The SDGs help us set the right goals.”
One drawback is that investors often shy away from unsustainable companies, when these are the very businesses that can improve with help and monitoring. “The entire spirit of the SDGs lies in the potential for improvement,’ she says. “The challenge is in investment models. You don’t want to lower the standard, but at the same time, using the SDGs, you want to upgrade those Bs and Cs to become A students.”
This story is an excerpt from a longer interview from the Quantifying sustainability book.
Quantifying sustainability: A new book on data & determination
This is a book about nine Robeco specialists and their drive, the numbers and data behind the stories. It’s about ESG integration, SDGs, climate and biodiversity, dilemmas and data.
免責聲明
本文由荷宝海外投资基金管理(上海)有限公司(“荷宝上海”)编制, 本文内容仅供参考, 并不构成荷宝上海对任何人的购买或出售任何产品的建议、专业意见、要约、招揽或邀请。本文不应被视为对购买或出售任何投资产品的推荐或采用任何投资策略的建议。本文中的任何内容不得被视为有关法律、税务或投资方面的咨询, 也不表示任何投资或策略适合您的个人情况, 或以其他方式构成对您个人的推荐。 本文中所包含的信息和/或分析系根据荷宝上海所认为的可信渠道而获得的信息准备而成。荷宝上海不就其准确性、正确性、实用性或完整性作出任何陈述, 也不对因使用本文中的信息和/或分析而造成的损失承担任何责任。荷宝上海或其他任何关联机构及其董事、高级管理人员、员工均不对任何人因其依据本文所含信息而造成的任何直接或间接的损失或损害或任何其他后果承担责任或义务。 本文包含一些有关于未来业务、目标、管理纪律或其他方面的前瞻性陈述与预测, 这些陈述含有假设、风险和不确定性, 且是建立在截止到本文编写之日已有的信息之上。基于此, 我们不能保证这些前瞻性情况都会发生, 实际情况可能会与本文中的陈述具有一定的差别。我们不能保证本文中的统计信息在任何特定条件下都是准确、适当和完整的, 亦不能保证这些统计信息以及据以得出这些信息的假设能够反映荷宝上海可能遇到的市场条件或未来表现。本文中的信息是基于当前的市场情况, 这很有可能因随后的市场事件或其他原因而发生变化, 本文内容可能因此未反映最新情况,荷宝上海不负责更新本文, 或对本文中不准确或遗漏之信息进行纠正。