'Greenwashing': ESG investment funds overstate environment commitment, Otago Uni research finds

Asset managers say climate change is a priority but many can't say what the carbon intensity is for their investment portfolios. Photo / File

Some investment funds being sold to New Zealanders are overstating their commitments to invest environmentally, and regulatory intervention may be required to prevent investors from choosing "lemons", research by Otago University has revealed.

The researchers investigated the environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies and performance of global equity funds available to New Zealand and Australian investors by surveying 105 asset managers with support from Saturn Advice, MyFiduciary and Morningstar.

First they surveyed the asset managers to understand how and why they incorporated ESG information into investment decisions and then compared the survey responses with the underlying investments.

The researchers found decisions by fund managers to take responsible investment factors into account were largely driven by them wanting to limit financial risk or attract new customers - rather than a desire to do the right thing by the environment.

Dr Sebastian Gehricke, a senior lecturer and deputy director of the Climate and Energy Finance Group at the University of Otago, who was one of four researchers for the paper "In holdings we trust: Uncovering the ESG fund lemons", said fund managers appeared to be motivated by creating value.

But he said investors and clients were probably looking at sustainability issues from a values perspective - their ethical obligations - which a very low number of funds said was motivating them.

"There is this conflict of interest in a way that's driving part of this."

When comparing the survey responses to portfolio holdings data, the researchers found that carbon intensity levels were higher for asset managers that were members of a climate initiative and not significantly different for those that said they prioritised climate change themes or engaged in a decarbonisation strategy.

"The divergence between words and actions appears to be consistent with greenwashing funds ('lemons') seeking responsible investment flows without 'walking the talk'," the research paper notes.

Gehricke said there were several groups of investment managers based on their intentions.

"There are some that are stating something and then not doing it, which would be blatant greenwashing. Then there are also a whole bunch that are saying they are doing something and wanting to do something but haven't quite figured out how that is going to work."

He said, on average, respondents to the survey said climate change was the most important topic from a list of environmental, social and governance themes.

Yet many of them did not report or could not provide the researchers portfolio level data on carbon intensity - a basic measure of carbon risk in an investment portfolio.

"We found it quite surprising the low amount of funds that provided that metric."

And of those that did provide the metric, when the researchers compared it to their metrics by looking at the actual portfolios, they found about half of the fund managers under-reported their emissions intensity.

"There were about half slightly over reporting or on par but then there were quite a few that were vastly under-reporting as well."

Gehricke said fund managers needed to disclose better data.

In New Zealand, the External Reporting Board is currently developing climate disclosure standards which will come into effect in 2023.

"That will give us some better information and it encompasses fund managers as well of a certain size. So they will have to start reporting a lot of these things as well. Transparency is really important. I think, also, regulation or some sort of oversight by regulators is really key as well.

"Someone like the FMA [Financial Markets Authority] potentially could and probably is starting to investigate greenwashing as a real malpractice to these fund managers' fiduciary duty."

Gehricke said it could not point to problems at specific fund managers as the data had been anonymised as part of its agreement with those it was collecting the data from.

He said New Zealand could also look to Europe, which had recently introduced a package of policies classifying fund managers based on the proportion of environmental-focused activity in their portfolios.

"They have to report on it legally. It's similar to here but broader than climate change."

He said research and rating firm Morningstar had recently down-graded 2000 funds which had previously been labelled as sustainable as they no longer met the criteria because of EU regulation.

"That transparency issue is really the key."

Gehricke said those who really want to invest in a fund that does what it says it is doing should look to third parties like the Mindful Money website for verification.

"Be careful where you get your information from. Mindful Money is a third party that looks at the holdings."

He says investors can also ask the fund manager what the portfolio's carbon emission intensity is relative to its benchmark.

"If they are really doing something, that should be lower. And if it is higher, they should have a good reason why it is higher."

Gehricke said the researchers were now treating the study as a pilot but were planning to expand the project with a co-author from MIT in the US into a global study and go a lot deeper on the holdings part of the analysis.