News & Research

The STOXX Global 1800 index fell 2.6% in dollars last month, with only basic-resources and energy companies posting a positive return among 20 sectors. Climate indices struggle to match benchmark returns, while factor, dividend and minimum-variance strategies outperform.

The iSTOXX® USA Ocean Care 40 Index follows on the success of the EURO iSTOXX® Ocean Care 40 Index and tracks companies whose operations and programs are helping stem the degradation of the world’s water bodies, marine ecosystems and the environment.

Dutch pension fund Pensioenfonds PGB is one of the subscribers to the Sustainable Development Investment Asset Owner Platform. The data, backed by some of the largest asset owners in the world, creates a standard for investing in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

It appears onerous and sometimes confusing, but the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) aims to enhance and protect participation in sustainable investments — a cause well worth the trouble.

Aligning portfolios with the UN Sustainable Development Goals is a fast-growing segment of responsible investing (RI), one with a different profile and outcome to ESG or climate considerations. A recent webinar explored how investors can employ the SDGs for portfolio management, index construction, reporting and more, using the Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform (SDI AOP).

We talk to Paul Lacroix, Ossiam’s Head of Structuring, about the switch of index underlying the Ossiam STOXX® Europe 600 Equal Weight NR ETF, and why an equal-weighted ESG strategy can boost both the ESG profile and price returns of a portfolio.

Fund issuers seeking to design sustainable-investment products to be distributed across European markets face an uphill struggle because of widely diverging national and regional frameworks. A new Qontigo whitepaper highlights the intricacy of Europe’s ESG labeling landscape and provides some recommendations that may help overcome its pitfalls.

The idDAX 50 ESG NR Decrement 4.0% can be used to underlie structured products offering exposure to sustainability leaders in the German equity market. The decrement mechanism allows issuers to improve the coupon or capital-protection terms offered to clients.

How can investors push companies to have a more positive societal impact from their products and operations? And how can that impact be measured? Responsible Investor and Qontigo host a panel of experts who discuss these topics and more.

Variety in ESG data can enrich investment strategies and provide an edge in performance. Qontigo’s open-architecture approach is to find and leverage the most robust sustainability information available, with no limitation to any single provider, for each investing case.

Working with technology partner Entis and Qontigo, as exclusive distribution partner, James Leaton leads the research and future development of the SDI AOP content. Just this week, the new 2022 data was released so we took this opportunity to find out more about what this means for investors. 

Rebecca Chesworth, Senior Equities Strategist at State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs; and Hamish Seegopaul, Head of R&D for ESG and Quantitative Indices at Qontigo, discuss the change in underlying index for the SPDR® STOXX Europe 600 ESG Screened UCITS ETF and how clients’ ESG needs are shaping the product offering.