Scientific Beta

Scientific Beta is organising a virtual Climate Masterclass on Tuesday 24 May, 2022 exclusively for asset owners and institutional consultants, where Scientific Beta's experts will examine a number of important issues that need to be considered in the field of climate investing for investment professionals. Among these key subjects, the question of the capacity to efficiently engage companies that build investors’ portfolios will be the guiding principle of this Masterclass.

Scientific Beta is organising a virtual Climate Masterclass that will be taking place on Tuesday, May 24 from 10am to 1pm Central European Summer Time.

This research-oriented Masterclass will examine a number of important issues that need to be considered in the field of climate investing for investment professionals. Among these key subjects, the question of the capacity to efficiently engage companies that build investors’ portfolios will be the guiding principle of this Masterclass. In fact, numerous studies have shown that the impact of investments on mitigating climate change is limited by the fact that portfolios’ climate-alignment strategies do not correspond to consistent decisions with respect to companies’ climate performance. Investors are often too focused on reducing the overall carbon intensity of the portfolio to the detriment of the consistency of investment decisions at sector and stock levels.

In view of these difficulties, this Masterclass will propose practical solutions to both detect and avoid these inconsistency risks that compromise the effectiveness of climate investments.

Programme

Tuesday, May 24, 2022 — All times are CEST (Central European Summer Time)

• 10:00am-11:00am
  Portfolio Construction: From Paris-Aligned Benchmarks to the Net-Zero Investment Framework
  Frédéric Ducoulombier, ESG Director, Scientific Beta
  This session will show how investors wishing to link their net-zero investment commitments to impact should not only consider opting for frameworks and approaches that maximise potential investor impact, but also document the implementation of their impact strategies and endeavour to measure their real-world outcomes.

• 11:00am-12:00pm
  How to Measure Greenwashing Risks?
  Felix Goltz, PhD, Research Director, Scientific Beta
  This session will detail key indicators that help investors to diagnose greenwashing by formulating how inconsistencies can manifest themselves when building climate investing strategies. The session will discuss the channels that investors can use to influence companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will then present an empirical study of popular climate investing strategies and ask whether such strategies fulfil basic requirements for impact. Key criteria that are analysed include the weight determinants of climate strategies, the treatment of firms with deteriorating climate performance and allocation decisions to economic sectors that are essential for the energy transition. The session will introduce practical tools for investors’ due diligence of climate strategies and provide recommendations for regulators.
  
  
• 12:00pm-01:00pm
  What are the Best Ways for Investors to Positively Impact Climate Matters?
  Erik Christiansen, ESG & Low Carbon Solutions Specialist, Scientific Beta
  This session will present concrete solutions for investors to have an impact on climate change through the construction of their portfolios and notably: translating Net-Zero frameworks into an equity investment solution, avoiding corporate greenwashing by using reliable and fit-for-purpose data, avoiding investor greenwashing through consistency between stock-level investment decisions and portfolio-level goals and finally measuring the impact of climate investment strategies.

Please note that each presentation will include an approximate 15-minute Q&A.

Speakers

Erik Christiansen is an ESG & Low Carbon Solutions Specialist with Scientific Beta. He was previously Head of Investment Strategy with the Etablissement de Retraite Additionnelle de la Fonction Publique (ERAFP), the mandatory pension scheme for French civil servants, where he was responsible for implementing the equity and ESG strategies. He has also previously worked as a Methodology Coordinator and Analyst at Vigeo Eiris, the ESG rating agency. Erik holds a Master’s degree in Management from the ESCP Business School and is a CFA charterholder.

Frédéric Ducoulombier is ESG Director at Scientific Beta. From 2015 to 2019, he was in charge of risk and compliance for Scientific Beta having previously served EDHEC Business School’s risk and investment management research centre for 10 years as the founding Director of EDHEC-Risk Institute’s executive education arm and of EDHEC Risk Institute–Asia. At EDHEC, he also taught economics and finance, managed graduate programmes and served as Deputy Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Deputy Associate Dean of Research and Development. His research and advocacy work has focused on the purported risks of exchange traded funds, the governance and transparency of financial indices, non-financial risks in the fund management industry, smart beta and factor investing and the integration of environmental, social and governance criteria into investment. He was a member of the Consultative Working Group of the ESMA Financial Innovation Standing Committee from February 2015 to January 2017.

Felix Goltz, PhD, is Research Director at Scientific Beta and associate researcher at EDHEC Business School. He has been with Scientific Beta since inception. He carries out research in empirical finance and asset allocation, with a focus on alternative investments and indexing strategies. His work has appeared in various international academic and practitioner journals and handbooks, including the Journal of Portfolio Management, the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Index Investing, the Journal of Investment Management and the Handbook of Finance (Wiley). He obtained an MSc and a PhD in finance from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis after studying economics and business administration at the University of Bayreuth and EDHEC Business School.

Registration

Please note that this event is exclusively for asset owners and institutional consultants.

In order to participate in the online Masterclass, please visit the dedicated registration page.

Contact

If you would like to receive the webinar replay, the slides and the related research publications from the masterclass, please contact Séverine Cibelly at severine.cibelly@scientificbeta.com or on +33 493 187 863.