Listen to Philippe Zaouati, founder and CEO of Mirova, sustainability focused asset management fund.
Frankly Speaking has invited the founder and CEO of Mirova, a 30 billion Euros sustainability focused asset manager based in Paris. Philippe Zaouati has proven that it is possible to scale up ESG investing. Mirova has grown fourfold in just the last five years. Philippe was a member of the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, which led to the establishment of the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan, and chairs the Responsible Investment Committee of EFAMA, the umbrella body representing all asset managers across Europe.
He describes himself as a sustainable finance activist and shares his take on:
“With the global mainstreaming of ESG, there is a huge spectrum of behaviors and a significant part of the ESG market today is greenwashing. That's a reality. So we need to design tools which will help us to separate the good and the bad parts of the market and to identify what are the really impactful behaviors and investment funds. The problem is not the greenwashing. The problem is that we do not have these tools. Regulation could be one of these tools, labels could be another one.”
Is it really is possible for companies to "do the right thing"?
There's very little pressure being applied to companies by investors looking at how they're actually behaving and treating human rights as a core business priority. This needs to change.
Investors shouldn't just take companies' word for what they're doing; they should investigate what the companies are actually doing regarding human rights.
