Sustainable Development
A committed and pragmatic approach to support sustainable growth
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Brundtland Report (1987), “Our Common Future”:
Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development
Moneta's employees are aware of the challenges linked to global warming and the importance that everyone's behaviour changes to preserve natural resources and the environment. There is a real sensitivity within the teams on this subject. This takes two forms at Moneta:
Acting as responsible investors: developing a constructive approach around our stock selection process to reflect our environmental sensitivity in our portfolios
Acting as committed citizens: adopting daily actions and an attitude that takes into account our impact on the environment
Develop our own positive selection criteria
A methodology whose foundations are common to our fundamental analysis
Use our knowledge of companies and management : the close proximity to the companies in our coverage universe gives us a detailed understanding of their activities, putting us in a better position to detect the ESG opportunities and risks of each company studied; regular meetings with management also provide us with an invaluable asset in assessing the ESG actions developed by issuers.
Remain pragmatic : our approach is dictated by financial materiality; we are therefore prepared to make a decision on the information collected in order to focus on the information that we consider most relevant to our analysis. This is illustrated in (1) our discriminating consideration of controversies based on internal analysis or (2) our willingness to value concrete results rather than written policies.
Forming our own opinion : this is obvious in fundamental analysis and must also be in ESG analysis; for us, it is a question of not giving in to fashions, a temptation that is all the stronger when we are faced with rapidly evolving issues where the consensus may vary according to the concerns of the moment. In this context, it is key for us to maintain our independence of mind, based on our in-depth analysis of companies, our management experience and our pragmatism.
Several key elements of our ESG investment process
An integrated ESG approach : the Management Team takes charge of the subject, without resorting to an ad-hoc team; we believe that this non-siloed approach allows us to reflect ESG issues more accurately in our valuation models.
A proprietary rating system, Moneta VIDA : to be able to develop an approach that is true to our principles, the use of our own rating is imperative. Indeed, Moneta VIDA allows us to (1) diversify the sources of information so as not to be locked into issuers' documentation, (2) reflect data that is sometimes difficult to quantify and therefore ignored by ESG rating agencies, (3) integrate our knowledge of management, and (4) better understand the Small and Mid Caps, which are often penalised by external ratings due to a lack of resources comparable to those of the Large Caps.
A historical involvement in the promotion of good governance practices : since the beginning, we have demonstrated vigilance in the area of governance. When we have deemed it necessary, we have not hesitated to initiate corporate governance actions using all the means at our disposal to defend the interests of our shareholders. This shareholder commitment remains a constant at Moneta.
