The global shift toward sustainable investing represents a profound and transformative change in financial management. Propelled by investors determined to drive positive social and environmental impact worldwide, it is also both inspiring and uplifting.
When one pauses to consider it, sustainable investing is a truly unprecedented global movement in the best interests of both our planet and we who populate it. That said, the journey has just begun—and the roadmap yet to be fully defined. One thing, however, is clear. The journey toward this new era of sustainable investing will be defined collaboratively and cooperatively, as investors, asset owners, investment managers, regulators, corporations, solutions providers like Qontigo and others work together to make this transformation a functional reality.
And that collaborative environment is a perfect fit for Qontigo. Our name derives from the Spanish word “contigo” meaning “with you.” It reflects our continuous focus over the years on collaborating with clients to develop innovative and flexible solutions, powered by modern technology, and tailored to the specific needs and objectives of our clients.
All those things are vital in the context of sustainable investing. Our goal is to enable our clients to optimize their impact on the social and environmental issues they consider most critical—and to identify and navigate to New Efficient Frontiers.
It is in this context that we at Qontigo commit ourselves to the following Sustainable Policy Principles:
- The journey ahead cannot be made alone—and must be undertaken in the best of company.
- Qontigo’s curated and open ESG data ecosystem draws on our partnerships with leading industry providers, including ISS, Sustainalytics, Clarity, Entis, FactSet and Refinitiv.
- Our Sustainable Investment Think Tank (SITT) monitors and engages with regulators to anticipate new developments and enhance client positioning ahead of new regulations and labels implemented by the European Commission, AMF, SEC, Febelfin, and BVI, to name a few.
- We are committed to the collaborative development of new standards by working with external organizations, including the World Benchmarking Alliance and the Asset Owner Platform on Sustainable Development Investment.
- We are committed to allocating funds to research organizations that are leading the next generation of thinking on sustainable investing.
- And, as always, we will continue to work collaboratively with our clients to create innovative and tailored solutions that provide competitive advantage to help drive out-performance.
- At Qontigo, our work is never done.
- We are committed to creating a pathway for the transition from brown to green by embedding ESG analytics within Axioma’s solutions to continually enhance our Industry-leading IP in portfolio optimization, factor risk models, analytics and index rules and data.
- We invest in R&D to develop new services, such as portfolio climate stress-testing.
- Our rigorously maintained brands—STOXX, DAX, and Axioma—deliver confidence, clarity and value to our clients so that there is full transparency on the choice of sustainability solutions that we offer.
- We continue to develop and refine our open architecture when it comes to the sustainability metrics feeding our models, to reflect the diversity of investors’ approaches and preferences.
- Our ongoing development of adaptive products and delivery capabilities—APIs, versatile functionality, partner interoperability and custom indexing—all support the tailored development and efficient, seamless execution of sustainable investment strategies.
- While climate and environmental goals are the predominant focus of our external solutions, as an organization we are also committed to social and governance principles in terms of diversity, inclusion and equity; promoting inclusive hiring practices; and strong and independent Board oversight.
- We have established a Sustainable Investment Advisory Board with equal representation from the private and public sectors to ensure balanced viewpoints and oversight of our sustainability initiatives.
- We demand of ourselves nothing less than we demand of others. For example, Qontigo mandates that all companies in the STOXX PAB and CTB indices set SBTi-verified targets to reduce GHG emissions or be removed from the indices.
- In setting our own science-based targets, we will evaluate beyond our own minimal carbon footprint and extend the analysis to setting reduction targets for the weighted average GHG intensity of assets benchmarked to our indices.
- We will provide transparency to our progress against these commitments through a process of rigorous self-analysis aimed at identifying—and publicly sharing—areas where we are doing well and where we can improve.
To sum up, our Mission Statement embodies this commitment as follows:
Qontigo partners “with you” to optimize your clients’ investment impact.
- Our index, analytics and risk solutions empower investment intelligence to drive targeted sustainable returns.
- Our modern technology and data easily integrate with your preferred workflows.
- We collaborate with clients because we know from experience that partnering and co-creation generate exceptional results.
The most critical element of the collaborative process is engagement and discussion, which almost invariably lead to new ideas, followed by enhanced ideas and, ultimately, innovations that drive competitive advantage and outperformance as we push toward optimizing the New Efficient Frontier of risk, return, and societal impact.