Scientific Beta

ETF Strategy: "Smart beta index provider Scientific Beta has published an open letter to MSCI in which it criticizes the firm’s stance against the exclusion of controversial weapons from global cap-weighted indices. The letter, penned by Professor Noël Amenc, CEO of Scientific Beta, was written in reference to Swiss Sustainable Finance’s open letter, dated 31 January 2019. This letter called on index providers to remove companies involved in controversial weapons from their mainstream indices."

ETF Strategy 21/02/2019

"(...) Smart beta index provider Scientific Beta has published an open letter to MSCI in which it criticizes the firm’s stance against the exclusion of controversial weapons from global cap-weighted indices. The letter, penned by Professor Noël Amenc, CEO of Scientific Beta, was written in reference to Swiss Sustainable Finance’s open letter, dated 31 January 2019. This letter called on index providers to remove companies involved in controversial weapons from their mainstream indices. (...) In response to Swiss Sustainable Finance’s open letter, MSCI argued that for a broad cap-weighted index to represent all investment opportunities within its segment, it cannot contain an ESG filter by default. However, Amenc believes that this argument is not admissible: “From a practical point of view, we know that the exclusions on controversial weapons proposed by Swiss Sustainable Finance represent a very marginal weight that in any event is far lower than the exclusions or weight limitations implemented by all index providers to guarantee the liquidity and investability of their global cap-weighted indices.” (...)"