ESG-sse ja jätkusuutlikesse fondidesse laekuva sularaha üleujutus on ka kliima finantssektori rohepesuprobleemidega üle ujutanud.
Arvestades, et sellistesse fondidesse investeeritakse hinnanguliselt 3 triljonit dollarit ja 2022. aastaks prognoositakse rekordilisemat sissevoolu, on mõistlik panus, et osa rahast kujutab endast rohkem turundust kui tõelist pingutust kliimamuutuste vastu võitlemisel.
Millest me täpsemalt räägime? Põhimõtteliselt on greenwashing spin – sõnumid, mis jätavad eksitava mulje, et toode, strateegia või praktika on keskkonnasõbralik. Kliima rahastamise sektoris võib rohepesu olla sama lihtne – ja jultunud – kui ESG-märgise kandmine fondile, millel puudub tegelik läbipaistvus või andmed nõude kinnitamiseks ja võib-olla puudub ESG-põhine strateegia.
Selle süüdistuse esitas eelmisel sügisel Deutsche Bankis panga varahaldusüksuse DWS Groupi endine jätkusuutlikkuse ametnik Desiree Fixler väga avalikus segaduses. Juhatusele peetud ettekandes ütles ta, et ettevõttel puudub selge ESG strateegia, puudus söe ja muude fossiilkütuste poliitika ning et selle ESG meeskondi peetakse pigem spetsialistideks kui otsustamise lahutamatuks osaks.
“Posturing with big statements on climate action and inclusion without the goods to back it up is really quite harmful as it prevents money and action from flowing to the right place,” Fixler argued.
Väljalangemine? Deutsche Bank avaldas raporti, mis eitas Fixleri väiteid ja vallandas ta. Deutsche Bank, institutsioon, millel on juba pikka aega eetiliste tavade välisservadel tegutsemise maine, sai järjekordse halva ajakirjanduse.
Üks uuenduslik lahendus, mille on kasutusele võtnud kvantnõustaja, on tehisintellekti kasutamine rohepesu tõrjumiseks.
One current focal point for concerns about greenwashing is the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance, a work in progress that is stumbling over the issue of whether to include nuclear and natural gas in its taxonomy as sustainable energy. The tentative plans to include nuclear and gas as “transitional” activities have been met with rigorous pushback from experts. “The biggest greenwash ever,” charged Andreas Hoepner, professor of operational risk, banking and finance at University College Dublin, speaking to Environmental Finance. Hoepnner, also a member of the EU Platform, was one of nine signatories in a letter warning that experts could resign their positions on the platform committee if the measure was included in the final act.
Responses to additional requests for input to the draft text are due imminently, and there will be another year of consultation before the proposed taxonomy becomes a legal regulation. The €250 billion question, as Net Zero Sensemaker notes in “You say green, I say greenwash,” is “whether the system, in final form, will be consistent with the EU’s target of reducing emissions by 55 percent by 2030.”
So what is to be done? One innovative solution, adopted by a quant adviser, is to use artificial intelligence to ferret out greenwashing. Andy Moniz, a data scientist at Acadian Asset Management, a $100 billion fund, uses natural language processing and machine learning to figure out what companies are really doing. Among the data he analyzes for hidden ESG risks are “transcripts of executives speaking at shareholder meetings, conferences, and on analyst calls for signs of evasiveness, vagueness, or a refusal to answer questions,” reports Bloomberg. What’s also novel is Moniz’s aim: to focus only on how ESG issues affect the bottom line. “We don’t treat ESG as any different to any other dataset,” Moniz says.
ESG käsitlemine olulisena riskiga korrigeeritud tulude prognoosimisel võib tunduda elementaarne praktika, kuid see tähistab järjekordset sammu edasi ESG tegurite tõhusal kasutamisel investeerimisotsuste tegemisel.
Allikas: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/rising-tide-green-funds-floats-greenwash-boats
