daphni’s Post

🛸 In the Jungle of ESG Initiatives: Navigating as a VC 🛸 ESG is an inescapable topic in the VC world, enhancing financial market practices and its shift toward investments in societal and environmental solutions. Despite criticism and “backlash”, ESG unites market players in Europe, addressing regulatory demands, investor information needs, supporting decarbonization and extra-financial value creation. There are concrete benefits of ESG initiatives: 👉 Adopting best practices: learn from various experienced stakeholders 👉 Benefiting from frameworks and action plans: ready-to-implement guides 👉 Exchanging and innovating: collaborate on challenges and new approaches 👉 Knowing the best tools: source the best ESG market solutions, as we can’t do our job without them Labels attest the state of the art and our progress. They validate practices, raise standards, and demonstrate that a third party has objectively examined a fund's practices and that minimum thresholds have been exceeded. Each VC fund should explore ESG initiatives that align with its specific goals and capabilities, as active participation strengthens responsible investment practices and contributes to market transparency and sustainability, while AI tools enhance efficiency in ESG reporting and compliance with regulation. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dpdCJCfD daphni

A CALL FOR USING QUANTITATIVE ESG METRICS WHEN CREATING INVESTMENT FUNDS!!! 📊 Why not create investment funds using objective metrics that disclose ESG performance, like "top 5% lowest CO2 emitting companies in the energy sector"? This is easy to communicate, and provides clarity to everyone who wants to invest! By creating investment funds with precise quantitative ESG targets, investors can have a clear and transparent framework for evaluating ESG performance. These metrics serve as tangible benchmarks, enabling investors to assess the impact of their investments in a meaningful way. However, harnessing the potential of quantitative ESG metrics is no easy feat. The sheer volume of ESG data can be overwhelming, and building dashboards to track fund performance against targets can be a daunting task. With new investments being added and data reports continuously evolving, ensuring alignment with ESG goals requires constant vigilance. At Lynxai, we understand the complexities of ESG investing and the challenges associated with measuring and managing ESG performance. That's why we're dedicated to helping investors navigate this terrain with confidence. 💡 Our innovative solutions leverage advanced analytics and technology to streamline ESG data management, providing investors with real-time insights into fund performance and alignment with ESG targets. From building customized dashboards to automating data analysis, we empower investors to make informed decisions and drive positive impact. Together, let's pave the way for a more transparent, sustainable, and accountable future in investment. Reach out to learn how Lynxai can support your ESG investing journey!! #ESG #Investing #Sustainability

Despite some pushback on ESG, PitchBook's latest analyst note shows private market asset owners doubling down on ESG. Here are three key takeaways:     📈 ESG is seen as a value creation and protection tool, with no evidence suggesting it compromises returns 🌍 Environmental issues are being seen as increasingly material, particularly in certain industries and regions 🏛 SFDR leads the way in terms of ESG regulation, and will likely improve access to better-quality ESG data in private markets It is promising to see the growing emphasis in private markets on integrating ESG for value creation and risk mitigation, especially amidst shifting regulations, improving data quality, and a clearer understanding of materiality. This is fully in line with our focus at VentureESG — focussing beyond reporting and on ESG as a full-body workout. Link to analyst note: https://lnkd.in/eKaxhiDi

#bloombergintelligence survey reveals #ESG adoption by investors and C-Suite, despite concerns Key findings include: Despite geopolitical risks and macro economic factors, 85% of investors and companies surveyed plan to boost ESG investment over the next five years 84% of executives say ESG helps deliver a more robust corporate strategy and 85% of investors reported that ESG leads to better returns, resilient portfolios and enhanced fundamental analysis Nine out of 10 executives and investors stated that AI is a ‘friend not foe’ for ESG Read the survey results: https://lnkd.in/exp6JvkW #sustainablefinance #sustainableinvesting #greenfinance #greeneconomy

Morningstar have released their latest Sustainalytics data today. This latest research busts the myth that ESG investments are more expensive for investors, as commonly assumed due to specialised ESG data, research, and expertise. In a new Morningstar Sustainalytics report, they have compared the representative costs of ESG funds in Europe versus their conventional peers in six of the most popular Morningstar categories and examined the evolution of costs over the past decade for both cohorts and by investment style. #ESG

It was a pleasure to participate in a fireside chat with Francine Lacqua at Bloomberg Intelligence ESG Investing Summit in London last week. I seized the opportunity to emphasise Euronext’s commitment to accelerate Europe’s trajectory towards sustainable growth, both through our own operations and the role we play in empowering sustainable finance. This was a moment to share my views on how effective positive change requires efforts and cooperation among key players in the market. I also highlighted how Euronext can significantly impact the European sustainability agenda by leveraging its distinct position in financing the real economy and linking local economies with global capital markets. As strong advocates of the CSRD directive, we firmly believe that the shift towards sustainable finance hinges on improved extra-financial standards and more precise, regulated, and granular ESG criteria. We are offering to issuers a full suite of ESG products and services to support them in their pursuit of sustainability goals. In 2023, Euronext solidified its position as the world's leading venue for sustainable bonds, with 450+ new ESG bond listings raising more than €280 billion. Over 50% of the newly listed ETFs were ESG-focused. Additionally, we launched new ESG indices, including the CAC 40 SBT 1.5 and others, further demonstrating our commitment to sustainability. As the leading market infrastructure in Europe, Euronext will pursue its journey to support, facilitate, and lead by example, forging a new path towards sustainable value creation. This way we shape capital markets for future generations.  

When looking for a tool to calculate look-through in the effective investment proportions between a pair of companies, a graph database like Neo4j looks like a natural choice, because it is designed and optimised to query relationship chains that have a varying number of steps. The problem is, if there are more than about 5 degrees of separation between two entities, the number of possible inter-relations absolutely explode! Neo4j can't keep up, and perhaps it wasn't designed to. But is this actually a significant issue? For example, if an investment fund needs to do ESG reporting, it may want to aggregate up through the ESG compliance statuses for each of the possibly thousands of companies it ultimately invests in. It's not impossible for these relationships to have 3 or more indirect steps between them. The results could get messy for long chains, but perhaps companies tend to have investment chains that are shorter than this. Does anyone know of examples where this is a problem, and if so what ESG practitioners are doing to handle it? Or, if it is not a problem, are there regulations, ESG or otherwise, that prevent investment chains from getting unmanageably long? https://lnkd.in/dkTgYz8H

We will see more ESG #investments over the next five years! According to a Bloomberg survey among 250 C-suite executives and 250 senior investors, the vast majority of them plan to increase their #ESG investments in the next half decade. With expectations of enhanced returns and brand value, 75% of the investors and executives believe that the benefits of ESG outweigh the increased risk of #greenwashing scrutiny. Other interesting results from the survey: 💪 92% of investors say that ESG supports a more resilient portfolio strategy. 🔬 85% of investors plan to boost their ESG research budgets over the next two years - some even plan to do so by more than 20%. 🌿 77% of executives anticipate an increased ESG budget in the next 2 years - 23% expect the increase to be more than 20%. 🤖 90% of both agree that AI is a friend of ESG, providing better data estimation, improved supply chain traceability, and an ability to track controversies. They say that AI will help address data problems otherwise a barrier to investor and corporate ESG initiatives. Read more about the results from the study here in the below article.

How Green is Green? Empowering #ESG Investment Managers with Standard Methodology and AI Thanks to Global Banking & Finance Review to mention Fidata and Maria Grazia Vigliotti PhD, FBCS to discuss the importance of appropriate #risk models and the nuances of the #ESGdata required to develop a common ESG understanding and support greener investment decisions. Always an honour to work with  Akber Datoo and Elliot Curtis at D2LT Now is definitely the time for trusted AI to scale ESG analysis to accelerate investment decision. If you work for a financial institution, in climate risk, green finance, impact or sustainability, and you are looking for an agile and innovative way to make sustainability credentials of ESG bonds and issuers become comparable  get in touch at join-waitinglist-request@fidata.co.uk. No need in spending a disproportionate amount of time in collecting and standardising data. We can help! Read Global Banking & Finance Review: https://lnkd.in/eP7Zpd82 #esgdata #esgreporting #aiadoption #trustedai #greenbonds #sustainability #greenfinancing

Customisation of ESG Investment Strategies 🌱 Today I would like to expose the intricate world of ESG investing and the challenges of tailoring investment funds to meet diverse client demographics and company objectives! In the dynamic landscape of ESG investing, one of the central challenges is the lack of a one-size-fits-all approach. Different clients have unique priorities, and companies vary significantly in their sustainability goals. This presents a dilemma for financial institutions. How can they ensure that their investment strategies align with the specific ESG preferences of their clients and also with their internal sustainability goals? Compounding this challenge is the sheer volume of available ESG data. Financial institutions must go through mountains of information to identify relevant metrics and benchmarks that accurately reflect their investment goals, and without automation, this challenge is extremely time/money-consuming. Furthermore, the traditional approach to ESG benchmarking often lacks flexibility and fails to capture the nuanced preferences of different stakeholders, since there isn't a consensus on the most relevant metrics and their weight. Do you have these challenges? What potential solutions do you envision for addressing these challenges? Let me know in the comments or via message!