Sustainable investing may be very a lot on the minds of buyers throughout the globe. That’s the important thing takeaway from the Index Trade Affiliation (IIA)’s fifth annual survey of worldwide impartial index suppliers.
By measuring the variety of indices world wide from throughout asset lessons, geographies, and classes, the annual IIA Benchmark Survey serves as a helpful temperature verify for world buyers and has led us into deeper evaluation of rising areas of investor focus. IIA members proceed to manage over 3 million indices globally and, with 9,000 to 10,00 exchange-traded merchandise (ETPs), it’s clear most indices are used for benchmarking functions not for merchandise for funding. The unprecedented progress in environmental, social and governance (ESG) indices and ongoing growth in fixed-income indexes lately has created extra instruments for benchmarking and can present asset managers higher instruments to create higher funding merchandise for buyers.
This yr’s survey outcomes present the sunshine for ESG, or sustainable investing, continues to be flashing inexperienced. The variety of indices measuring ESG standards jumped by 43%. That’s a report year-over-year (YoY) improve for any sector within the survey and comes on prime of a 40.2% rise from 2019 to 2020. For perspective, most classes change inside 5% YoY.
Whereas not stunning, the newest survey findings, mixed with different IIA analysis, affirm an ongoing and accelerating development we have now noticed in the previous few years. As world buyers embrace sustainable investing methods to an ever better extent and regulators and policymakers sharpen their give attention to ESG-related points, the demand for dependable ESG market measures has soared. And index suppliers have stepped in to satisfy that demand.
Eye-popping ESG index progress over the previous a number of years impressed us to launch the IIA’s first annual ESG survey of worldwide asset managers earlier this yr. The inaugural survey gathered views on a spread of ESG-oriented subjects from about 300 asset managers in america and Europe. It discovered that 85% of those managers view ESG as a excessive precedence for his or her firms. ESG prioritization is driving asset allocation, with the proportion of ESG belongings in world portfolios managed by this group anticipated to rise from 26.7% in 12 months to 43.6% in 5 years.
Amid better ESG adoption, buyers need extra and higher instruments to measure their ESG investments. Lack of quantitative knowledge was cited as a problem to ESG implementation by 63% of these surveyed. This yr’s IIA Benchmark Survey outcomes help these findings: Asset managers overwhelmingly need extra ESG indices in asset lessons past equities.
Investor belief is one other key issue within the speedy growth of ESG indices out there. Based on our ESG survey, 80% of respondents consider indices assist them direct funding rapidly to firms and sectors with robust ESG efficiency. One other 73% consider that indices enhance comparability in ESG efficiency, and 78% say that indices improve their confidence in ESG knowledge’s reliability. Amid the fast-evolving nature of many ESG points, three quarters of respondents discover that indices assist them reply rapidly to new ESG considerations.
Past ESG, our benchmark survey uncovered some further areas for index growth. Once more, in a nod to the attraction of multi-asset methods amongst buyers, the variety of indices measuring fixed-income markets elevated by virtually 8% YoY. That eclipsed the 7.1% improve in 2020.
As for ESG and stuck earnings, the survey discovered 61% extra ESG indices within the fixed-income area. There was additionally spectacular progress in high-yield bond indices and whole market or composite bond indices, in addition to fixed-income indices within the Americas.
Amongst equities classes, the thematic indices cohort was the one one apart from ESG to show robust progress, with a 27.5% improve YoY, albeit from a small base. This represents one thing of a shift amongst buyers away from sensible beta towards extra thematic funding approaches to higher entry rising investing tendencies.
Should you consider as I do that there’s a lag between the creation of indices and the event and sale of such merchandise to buyers, the variety of merchandise asset managers will deliver to market might be on the rise for the following a number of years. The outcomes from our surveys the previous two years level to ESG and stuck earnings as key areas for this progress. As extra quantitative company disclosure knowledge turns into accessible, higher ESG benchmarks might be created, which is able to lead asset managers to create higher funding merchandise that mirror buyers’ commitments to sustainable finance.
That is the fifth installment of a series from the Index Trade Affiliation (IIA). The IIA will have fun its tenth anniversary in 2022. For extra info, go to the IIA web site at www.indexindustry.org.
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All posts are the opinion of the writer. As such, they shouldn’t be construed as funding recommendation, nor do the opinions expressed essentially mirror the views of CFA Institute or the writer’s employer.
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