The AIF Institute officially launched the Center for ESG and Sustainable Investing. The AIF Institute’s second of four Centers of Excellence launching in 2021 will address top priorities within the investor community and provide leading, actionable research in key focus areas, including climate, governance, and diversity through the lens of risk management and investment opportunity. Natixis Investment Managers will serve as a founding faculty member for the development of the AIF Institute’s new Center, along with BlackRock.
Natixis Investment Managers, who will join the Center for ESG and Sustainable Investing Faculty Board, say the rapid global adoption of ESG underscores the need for investors to have clear objectives and evidence-based insights in order to select the ESG approaches that will contribute to effective capital allocation. They believe the new AIF Institute Center for ESG and Sustainable Investing will be an excellent independent resource to support those efforts.
Aligned with the AIF Institute’s mission, the Center for ESG and Sustainable Investing will cultivate leading academic research, along with thought leadership, in the investment industry across both the public and private sectors. Specifically, the Centers will place a primary focus on practical application and outcomes to support institutional investors globally in navigating, shaping, and integrating ESG and sustainability policies with the creation of innovation labs.
Cornerstone to each of the Centers of Excellence will be the innovation labs, where investors will actively engage with AIF Institute faculty to develop education and research that meet the evolving needs and challenges with respect to their portfolios, leveraging the independent AIF platform with its foremost academic and industry resources.
The AIF Institute says it will begin its focus in the innovation labs on critical ESG aspects still developing in the industry, including measurement and data, climate factors, benchmarking, implementation models, and ESG-focused investment policies—resulting from the institute’s dialogue with more than 50 of the world’s largest institutional investors.
