F.R. | 33% of Spanish asset managers do not consider ESG factors when making investment decisions, according to a survey conducted by Georgeson through interviews with leading Spanish institutional investors, representing an aggregate of around 320 billion euros in assets under management.
Among the managers that do take ESG factors into account when investing, the survey results highlight that the main methodologies for making decisions with this approach are in-house ESG assessment models (28%), the scores issued by ESG rating agencies (22%) and negative screening and exclusion (22%). It is also observed that the majority of investors (75%) consider that dialogue activities with companies impact their voting and investment decisions in a significant way while 67% indicate that they are active in corporate governance and vote at Shareholders’ Meetings. Forty percent of respondents indicated that they follow the recommendations of proxy advisors.
As for the frameworks of reference used by the Spanish fund managers interviewed, more and more investors expect companies to disclose their non-financial information in accordance with international standards. Both ISSB SASB (International Sustainability Standards Board, 27%) and GRI (Global Reporting Initiative, 18%) are international standards for sustainability reporting. While this remains an uncommon practice in the domestic market, as highlighted by the number of investors who do not follow any framework (27%).
