What on earth means responsible investment? I was at a workshop last week at Istanbul Stock Exchange to find out. Apparently it is a framework that helps investors to consider Environmental, Social and Corporate Government (ESG) performance of their portfolio. Get more information about the initiative at their website
Is that necessary? Believe it or not, it was not clear for even some of the panellists. 2 of the executives from Asset Management companies were so ignorant to the subject that I did not understand why they were invited. They kept talking about "their mission being maximizing the profit for their investors and how important government`s role blah blah blah".
To be fair, the market mechanism in Turkey is not deep enough to create pressure on those firms to have a serious CSR agenda and due to low credit ratings of the country, pension funds can not invest largely in Istanbul Stock Exchange. And yes, pension funds are the most conscious investors because they invest in the long-term value and environmental, social and corporate governance performance is more important in the long-term.
But still, if you think you don`t have anything to do about ESG performance of the companies, why do you bother and spend your afternoon at the workshop rather than staying at your office and maximising profits for your customers? Thank God, someone from the audience responded in a clever way. He said "it is a lie that you should MAXIMIZE your profit; instead you should OPTIMISE your profit. 300 years ago you could make tons of money using slaves, but at some point you could not any more. It is the same logic, you have to consider ethical performance of the companies you invest in, otherwise you will hit the wall at some point".
I thought, it is certain that we make progress; after all this was the first Responsible Investing workshop for asset management companies in Istanbul. The part that I am not certain is whether or not the progress is fast enough for our world and humanity...
