Miranda’s Weekly ESG | Jan, 17

Starting this January Marimar Torreblanca is leading a new division in Miranda Partners offering companies and investors advice on ESG issues in Mexico. The division is called Miranda ESG and will work closely with our sister divisions Miranda IR and Miranda Media & PR. As part of our new initiatives, we’ll be sharing once a week or so some thoughts on ESG issues relevant to Mexico. Please be encouraged to recommend any ESG subject matter that you would like us to research and put in a forthcoming weekly. 

This week we address two things: Larry Fink’s letter (obviously) and MSCI’s five ESG trends.

Larry Fink’s Week

Undoubtedly the most relevant news within the ESG universe was Larry Fink’s annual letter, BlackRock’s CEO. In it, sustainability is put front and center in their investment process going forward.

Our take: We believe the most powerful part of this letter is that when the largest asset manager in the world explains in detail how it is going to deal with issues such as climate change, it’s difficult for the rest of the investment world not to listen and question whether their approach to ESG is sufficiently robust.

5 Trends to Keep in Mind According to MSCI

Also this week, MSCI published  a report where it discusses the 5 trends that it expects will shape the ESG discussion in 2020: (1) the use of alternative data to find the players that will lead the world into a carbon-less economy (not likely to be start-ups); (2) ESG becoming a criteria in fund raising; (3) regulation pushing real estate to become “greener”; (4) substituting “old” talent for “new” talent in organizations to cope with digitalization, automation, etc; (5) the increase of stakeholders activism (no longer shareholder activism).

Our take: The wide reach of these trends show how widespread the ESG discussion is globally. This will only continue to grow bigger.

As always, if there is anything we can help you with, do reach out.

Kind regards,

Marimar

Partner, Miranda ESG