CIS, CISI Urge Companies, Investment Advisers to Embrace Sustainability

 Kayode Tokede

The Chairman, Bond Forum and Capital Markets Pathway Qualifications Assessment Board, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) in the United Kingdom, Neil Brown, has urged companies to implement sustainability policies of environmental, social and governance (ESG) to respond to increasing investor demand. 

Besides, Brown, a Chartered Fellow of CISI, who was the keynote speaker at a recent webinar organized by Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) in partnership with CISI, listed some benefits of sustainability, a major tool deployed by portfolio managers, asset managers and other investment advisers to recommend profitable companies for their clients.

Delivering a paper entitled “Sustainability in Nigeria’s economy, Capital Markets and Investment Products,” during the webinar last week, Brown explained that companies should embed sustainability in their businessboth to capture positive investment performance as well as offset negative effects of environmental challenges, promote good governance and community relations. 

According to him, companies should also collaborate with stakeholders to raise awareness, build capacity and promote action on sustainability.  Specifically, Brown advised that companies should “identify new opportunities whilst embedding sustainabilityconsiderations into their business to avoid, minimise or offset negative impacts. They need appropriate governance, policies and audit to promote communityrelations , collaborate with stakeholders to raise awareness, build capacity, manage risks, develop solutions  promote finance of priority sectors and report value of investments made and support received. “

He stated that regulators would expect companies to be transparent on their sustainability credentials as real actions can be under-reported through greenwashing tactics and its variants, including greenwashing, greencrowding, greenlighting, greenshifting, greenlabelling, greenhushing, greenlobbying and greenwishing. 

Brown noted that physical and transition risks would drive changing valuations for sectors and stocks and warned investment advisers that: “They should understand what drives their clients. Some investors may be driven by part or whole of sustainability. Investment advisers must look for a measure that matches their clients’ objectives. They should also beware of misleading scorecards. There could be strong ESG score because of bad impacts and weak ESG scores despite good impacts, “he said. 

Earlier in his welcome address, the Head, Education and Training, CIS, Chukwudi Nga, explained that the webinar was one in the series of Mandatory Continuing Programme Development (MCPD), designed to upskill the members of both CIS and CISI this year to enhance their professional practice.