Responsible Investing (ESG) Video

Why Investment Teams Need to Lead the ESG Integration Process

11 January 2022
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Why Investment Teams Need to Lead the ESG Integration Process
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      Scott DiMaggio, CFA| Head—Fixed Income
      Chris Hogbin| Global Head—Investments
      Transcript

      Chris Hogbin: At AB, we believe that integrating environmental, social and governance considerations in the investment process improves risk-adjusted returns and investor outcomes. In order to truly understand ESG issues, our analysts must conduct in-depth, hands-on research and engage actively with issuers—not outsource ESG assessments to third-party providers.

      Michelle Dunstan:       ESG integration and active engagement are fundamental to what we do, and the foundation of our responsible investment philosophy.

      ESG Integration and Engagement
      ESG Integration and Engagement

      As of 30 June 2021
      Source: AllianceBernstein (AB)

      ESG factors are incorporated into the research process for all actively managed strategies at AB. And it’s not enough to just choose the right securities: our fiduciary duty, as responsible stewards of clients’ capital, is to encourage companies to improve their business activities and practices. That requires active, direct engagement.

      Scott DiMaggio: Every portfolio manager and analyst, is committed to better understanding ESG issues.

      What are ESG Factors?
      What are ESG Factors?

          

      Environmental issues that matter include carbon emission, resource efficiency, waste management, pollution control, deforestation and biodiversity. We also consider social factors like modern slavery in supply chains, workplace safety, employee relations, and diversity and inclusion. Governance practices matter, too: all of our teams evaluate issues around bribery & corruption, executive pay, board structure and diversity, tax strategies, and internal controls and risk management. We want to see issuers aligned with stakeholders on E, S and G, and the people who are best-equipped to evaluate issuers’ ESG behaviors and practices are AB’s investment teams.

      Chris Hogbin: Our investment teams don’t tackle ESG alone. They work closely with our Responsibility team. These experts provide leadership in creating ESG frameworks and defining methodologies. They partner with our analysts in the research process. And they help conduct engagements with companies. The investment industry should be well past the point where ESG issues are considered separately from “traditional” return considerations. These issues need to be considered together and on a forward-looking basis. That’s what makes our investment teams’ partnerships with the Responsibility team so complementary—and so important.

      Michelle Dunstan: We have developed proprietary tools, including ESIGHT, our ESG research and engagement platform. These tools are critical to scaling our ESG insights across the firm. AB runs many portfolios across many investment teams, so sharing our proprietary ESG research and details of individual team engagements with issuers is critical. By staying connected, we can create strong research synergies and speak to issuers with a unified, impactful voice. With ESIGHT as the hub for all of our ESG research and engagement insights, we’re able to incorporate our best thinking into investment decisions.

      Scott DiMaggio: The process of integrating ESG across all actively managed strategies is governed by AB’s senior leadership and driven by the firm’s investment teams, in collaboration with our Responsibility team. ESG integration is supported by a robust infrastructure that includes proprietary tools, training and strategic partnerships. To learn more about the many ESG tools and processes we deploy at AB, please continue watching the next videos in this series.

      Responsibility Is Embedded at All Levels of the Firm
      Responsibility Is Embedded at All Levels of the Firm

         

      About the Authors

      As Co-Head of Fixed Income and Director of Global Fixed Income, Scott DiMaggio oversees all of AB's Global Fixed Income, Canada Fixed Income and US Multi-Sector Fixed Income strategies, as well as their associated investment strategy, activities and portfolio-management teams. Prior to joining AB's Fixed Income portfolio-management team, he performed quantitative investment analysis, including asset-liability, asset-allocation, return attribution and risk analysis for the firm.

      DiMaggio came to AB as a quantitative analyst, drawn by the firm's culture of strong mentoring and smart, collaborative people who wanted to win for their clients.

      "The world of fixed income—the world I grew up in—is enormously complex," DiMaggio says. Its complexity needs an active management approach. His investment philosophy combines the lenses of fundamental and quantitative research to generate the information that can lead to risk-adjusted returns for clients. Fully leveraging AB's proprietary technology, it's a process that DiMaggio and his team refine and repeat.

      "What we do is process driven and structured," DiMaggio says. "We like to be consistent."

      Chris Hogbin is the Global Head of Investments for AB. In this broad leadership role, he oversees all the firm’s investment activities. Hogbin is responsible for driving investment success across asset classes, fostering collaboration and sharing best practices across investment teams, as well as leveraging a common infrastructure and evaluating opportunities to invest in capabilities that deliver better outcomes for clients. He is also a member of the firm’s Leadership team and Operating Committee. Hogbin joined AB’s institutional research business in 2005 as a senior analyst covering the European food retail sector. In 2010, he was named to Institutional Investor’s All-Europe Research Team and was ranked as the #1 analyst in his sector in both 2011 and 2012. Hogbin became European director of research for the Sell Side in 2012 and was given additional responsibility for Asian research in 2016. In 2018, he was appointed COO of Equities for AB. In 2019 Hogbin was promoted to co-head of Equities, becoming head of Equities in 2020. Prior to joining the firm, he worked as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in London, San Francisco and Shanghai, where he was responsible for the execution of critical business-improvement initiatives for clients in the financial-services and consumer sectors. He holds an MA in economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. He is a trustee of the Public Theater in New York.