Scientific Beta

On 21 June, 2016 at 15:00 (BST) / 16:00 (CET), IPE will be hosting a webcast on the theme "Smart Beta & Low Carbon", presented by Eric Shirbini, Global Product Specialist at ERI Scientific Beta, and moderated by Brendan Maton of IPE.

On 21 June, 2016 at 15:00 (BST) / 16:00 (CET), IPE will be hosting a webcast on the theme "Smart Beta & Low Carbon", presented by Eric Shirbini, Global Product Specialist at ERI Scientific Beta, and moderated by Brendan Maton of IPE.

EDHEC Risk Institute has been conducting research for several years on the possibility of reconciling financial and environmental performance. The launch of a new series of low carbon indices by ERI Scientific Beta, the smart beta index provider set up by EDHEC Risk Institute in 2012, marks the practical realisation of these research efforts and represents an important moment for responsible finance, because the results of the research undertaken will provide institutional investors with smart beta indices that can reduce the carbon footprint of their equity investments by more than 80%, while at the same time outperforming traditional market indices and being able to create more than 50% additional value in the medium term.

EDHEC Risk Institute's approach can be distinguished from numerous approaches that, over the long term, hope to outperform the stock markets through the higher returns of shares in firms that have a better carbon footprint, because these firms are supposedly less affected by the increasing cost of fossil fuels and the tons of carbon emitted, but that, in the short and medium term, aim to produce performance that is fairly similar to that of traditional stock market indices.

Topics covered include:

Prior to joining EDHEC-Risk Institute, Eric Shirbini was a quantitative analyst at UBS, BNP Paribas and Nomura International. During this time he worked on a diverse range of topics including multi-factor models, fundamental stock valuation, equity market indices, portfolio construction and portfolio trading. At BNP Paribas Eric managed a team of analysts who were responsible for the Global Equity Research Database. Mr. Shirbini holds a BSc and PhD from University College London and an MBA from CASS Business School.