The majority of Asia’s institutional investors believe that ‘greenwashing’ is the biggest challenge to sustainable investment in the region.
As many as 56% of Asia-based respondents in a survey conducted by asset manager Schroders stated that the lack of agreed standards and definitions around ESG was giving way to greenwashing concerns and hampering their ability to invest sustainably.
The 173 respondents, who accounted for US$25.9 trillion in assets, also identified performance concerns (50%) and a lack of transparency and reported data as the biggest impediments.
The majority (58%) called for more data or evidence showing that investing sustainably produces better returns, while a similar share (48%) called for more transparent reporting from companies on both financial and non-financial reporting, and 39% asked for more benchmarks offering sustainable data.
The results from Schroders Institutional Investor Study 2020 comes just a week after Hong Kong’s financial regulator called on fund managers to
disclose any climate related risks in a bid to tackle the threat of greenwashing.
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