Scientific Beta

IPE: "The chief executive of index provider Scientific Beta has described as "inadmissible" arguments made by MSCI in response to a call from investors for index providers to exclude controversial weapon manufacturers from their mainstream indices. In a press release, Noël Amenc said there were "no practical or academic grounds for the idea that a broad cap-weighted index representing all investment opportunities cannot as a result contain an ESG filter by default"."

IPE 05/03/2019

"(...) The chief executive of index provider Scientific Beta has described as "inadmissible" arguments made by MSCI in response to a call from investors for index providers to exclude controversial weapon manufacturers from their mainstream indices. In a press release, Noël Amenc said there were "no practical or academic grounds for the idea that a broad cap-weighted index representing all investment opportunities cannot as a result contain an ESG filter by default". The weight of the exclusions proposed by Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) – the organisation co-ordinating the investor campaign – was far lower than the exclusions or weight limitations implemented by all index providers to guarantee the liquidity and investability of their global market capitalisation-weighted indices, said Amenc. (...)"