The Bloomberg Sustainable Finance Forum is under way, focusing on topics ranging from opportunities in the US market to the evolving regulatory environment.
Speakers include US Securities and Exchange Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw and executives from companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Bridgewater Associates.
The forum has been organized by groups across Bloomberg. To watch the event on the Bloomberg Terminal, click here.
Goldman’s Mueller Says Investors Move Away From ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Funds (1:50 p.m. NY time)
Barbara Mueller, a vice president at Goldman Sachs Asset & Wealth Management, said investors are moving away from “one-size-fits-all” ESG funds that rely on corporate scores and rankings, and instead opting for products that are more specific and defined.
While institutional investors understand funds based on environmental, social and governance scores, “investment advisers and their clients are perplexed by them,” she said. There’s confusion about why some companies are included in some funds and not others, she added.
Mueller said the current political backlash against ESG is welcome.
“Debate is good and will lead to more engagement,” she said. “It leads people to think more deeply about how they’re investing.”
The criticisms raise “good questions” about how to incorporate ESG goals with financial goals and how to attain environmental goals without creating inequalities, Mueller said.
SEC’s Crenshaw Sees Potential Overlap in EU-US Climate Rules (1:25 p.m. NY time)
Europe’s forward momentum on climate disclosure rules is highlighting the need for US regulators to think about how publicly traded companies operating globally can navigate multiple and potentially overlapping regulatory regimes, said Caroline Crenshaw, one of three Democratic commissioners at the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The closer they are together, the more likely, from the SEC perspective, we are to think about substitute compliance,” Crenshaw said during remarks at the Sustainable Finance Forum.
The SEC teed up a sweeping proposal in March 2022 intended to standardize the types of disclosures public companies make about greenhouse gas reduction goals, and the risks and opportunities presented by a changing climate. The agency has said investor demand for the information, as well as better tools to meaningfully draw comparisons between companies, is driving the rulemaking.
Crenshaw said that despite becoming mired in political fights over climate change, the rule itself isn’t political. “It is the bread and butter of the agency” and about responding to changing demands in the market for information, she said.
The proposal has yet to be finalized, and may not be taken up for a final vote for many months still.
