Welcome to ETMarkets’ Investors Guide, a show about asset classes, market trends, and investment opportunities. This is Atul P. M.
ESG or environmental, social and governance-linked investment has been one of the biggest recent developments in the world of investment. While the trend is quite old in the west, in India, it’s catching up fast now.
Over the past two years, we have seen investors making a concerted effort to hold companies accountable for corporate governance miscarriages and their impact on the society and environment. It is in this spirit that Sebi recently took the bold step to mandate companies to make more comprehensive disclosures on ESG-related metrics.
ETMarkets’ Chiranjivi Chakraborty caught up with, Abhay Laijawala, Managing Director and fund manager at Avendus Capital, to make sense of the Sebi move, the institutional investors can play in this equation and the outlook for ESG funds.
Listen in!
Q. As a fund manager who focuses a lot on ESG, how beneficial do you feel will these new BRSR reporting requirements be for investors?
Q. We have seen at least the bigger companies take steps towards sustainability but do smaller companies have the wherewithal to comply with such guidelines?
Q. How important is the role of the institutional investor like yourself in ensuring that managements and boards work towards ESG goals in a more urgent manner?
Q. AUMs of ESG funds in India have nearly tripled in the last year alone. How do you see that growing in the coming five years?
Thank you, Mr. Laijawala and Chiranjivi, that was indeed a very insightful conversation.
That’s it in this week’s edition of the special weekend podcast. Do come back next Saturday for this weekly special. You can check out our regular podcasts on the equity market twice every week day.
