The 'S' in ESG

Do social factors get forgotten in the noise over climate? In this Ethical Finance 2021 panel session, a group of experts argue that ESG investing often ends up as just E – dropping the social and governnance to focus exclusively on environment, and climate in particular.

From the difficulty of obtaining quality data, to the challenge of producing agreement, social finance has not had the ‘moment’ in the mianstream that climate has enjoyed in the past couple of years. Not content to speak only on the problems, they explain some of the solutions too, including MSCI’s use of nutritional data – ahead of food company disclosures – to assess whether action matches talk on healthy eating.

The panel: Thom Kenrick, Head of Social Banking, NatWest Group Andrew Cave, Head of Governance and Sustainability, Baillie Gifford Elena Espinoza, Acting Head of Social Issues, Principles for Responsible Investment Leslie Swynghedauw, Vice President, ESG Research, MSCI Lesley-Ann Vaughan, Product Strategy, Moojaloop Foundation (Co-Creator of M-PESA for Vodafone)