Question: if the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock (BlackRock’s Pitch for Socially Conscious Investing Antagonizes All Sides – The New York Times), does environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) for investors, why won’t TurnerStreet?
Answer: ESG means different things to different investors (e.g. is nuclear green?), and what we think determines to be ESG responsible might not suit a particular client.
Hence, TurnerStreet’s product design is about the investor-client telling us what they want excluded from the performance benchmark for ESG reasons. With technological advances it is straight forwward, and relatively cheap, to have a client specific benchmark. This makes it possible to measure our worth as an investment manager, and for the client to quantify the cost of their ESG decisions against a traditional benchmark.
Blackrock can tell clients what are ESG investments, but we aren’t as presumptuous.