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Long-term, strategic wealth management can help to build a better, more sustainable world, says HSBC Private Banking’s Fan Cheuk Wan
As we consider the new normal and begin to adapt to life in a post-pandemic world, people and businesses have started to recalibrate their priorities. Many investors are looking more closely at where their wealth is being deployed, and at ways to adjust their portfolio in favour of investments that reflect a more sustainable approach to society and the environment.
Environment, social and governance (ESG) considerations had been growing in importance for high-net-worth individuals before Covid-19, but HSBC Private Banking has seen that accelerate during the pandemic.
“This partly reflects the rising investor demand for more sustainable investment solutions that can help them to manage ESG risk and adapt to the new normal more effectively,” says Fan Cheuk Wan, chief investment officer Asia for Private Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC. “But the pandemic has also prompted many investors to seek investment opportunities that can help the world move towards a rebuilding process that focuses on creating a better and more sustainable future.”
Sustainable investment is often identified as a long-term investment megatrend, but the global response to the pandemic has helped to change perceptions about how quickly governments and businesses can act. As a result, portfolios and attitudes are changing to reflect expectations of a much more rapid shift.
In 2020, several major economies made explicit commitments to a net zero carbon future. Fan predicts that 2021 will be a pivotal year for sustainable investment as the US rejoins the Paris Agreement on climate change, and China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, pledges to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and highlights green initiatives as key elements of its recently announced 14th Five-Year Plan.
“A sustainable future is more attainable now that the world’s two largest carbon-emitting countries are making solid commitments to fighting climate change alongside global partners,” says Fan.
See also: Helping Wealth Blossom: A More Resilient Future With HSBC Private Banking
SOCIAL EQUITY
Sustainability is not just about the environment, and Fan notes that investors are increasingly interested in solutions that are also aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and other social aspirations.
Besides doing good, SDG-aligned investments can generate stable, long-term returns across fixed income and credit asset classes, as companies that are engaged in sustainable development projects also generate relatively resilient income and cash flow.
Fixed income opportunities that meet sustainability criteria can be more challenging to source than for public equity, which means that credit issued to finance SDG objectives can be extremely attractive to investors, both to meet their ESG goals and to help build more balanced portfolios.
Companies that embrace and advocate for issues around social equity are also increasingly valued by sustainability-focused investors after the events of 2020, when the pandemic focused attention on healthcare equality and, more recently, the uneven distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, while the Black Lives Matter movement brought worldwide attention to racial inequality.
“At HSBC, we truly believe that companies that adopt principles of diversity and inclusion, including within the management and leadership teams, also help to bring a more sustainable corporate strategy and business model,” says Fan.
INVESTMENT OPTIONS
Family offices and high-net-worth individuals can follow a variety of approaches to embed ESG into their portfolios.
ESG Enhanced
One of the most common approaches is ESG integration, sometimes known as ESG-enhanced investment or ESG factors, which employs positive and negative screening to identify companies that do well in managing ESG risk and are positioned to perform well in the low carbon transition.
One of the benefits of this approach is that it can be implemented in actively managed or discretionary solutions, long-only funds or even ETFs, across a well diversified multi-asset portfolio.
“Instead of going after individual, single securities, investors can position themselves in a better-diversified investment vehicle to achieve their sustainable investment objectives,” says Fan. “We have a very stringent product due diligence process and assess the ESG credentials and relative ESG performance of the underlying investment vehicles to help our clients mitigate greenwashing risk.”
While some solutions may brand themselves as green, HSBC’s product due diligence process looks into the underlying strategies and the investment approach to determine whether such solutions truly ally with clients’ investment objectives as stated in their investment profile.
Thematic
Thematic long-only funds and ETFs provide dedicated exposure to the structural growth factors exposed to green technologies and the disruptive trends that will drive the global low-carbon transition.
Fan says that ESG thematic fund solutions have seen strong inflows during the past 12 months, partly in response to the global race to net zero and accelerating green tech innovation. The Biden administration has already indicated plans to roll out massive green investments, focused on green technology, renewable energy and grid infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in China, the commitment to carbon neutrality will require massive investment in clean energy, electric vehicles and the whole supply chain to deliver on these promises.
“Thematic investment funds are uniquely exposed to the exciting structural growth opportunities brought by the global fight against climate change, so a lot of new investment vehicles have been rolled out with a focus on renewable energy, electric vehicles, climate change solutions and sustainable consumption,” says Fan.
