Editorial

Table of Contents

What Impact Should We Expect from Socially Responsible Investing?

Socially responsible investing continues to be one of the fastest growing topics in finance. With the ongoing implementation of the EU's sustainable finance plan, significant developments are set to continue and we are likely to see increasing standardization over the coming decade. Hence, it seems valuable to take a moment to reflect on what the impacts of sustainable investing are likely to be and how they can be made as positive as possible. Not least because EDHEC's motto is 'make an impact'. The author applies the general equilibrium framework of EDHEC's Prof. Laurent Calvet to the case of socially responsible investing and shows that it need not be the case that investors must sacrifice returns to invest responsibly. He also shows that responsible investors do best, and have the most impact, when they fully integrate their sustainability beliefs into their investment processes.

Climate Change, Credit Risk and Covid-19

On the 5th of November 2020, EDHEC-Risk Institute, in collaboration with Long-Term Investors@UniTO, organised a workshop on environmental changes, their impact on credit risk assessment and their link with Covid-19, hosting Francesco Profumo from Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Enrico Bernardini from Banca d'Italia, Professor Rebonato from EDHEC-Risk Institute and Giorgio Baldassarri from S&P Global Market Intelligence, who shared their analysis and insights on green transition, sustainable investments and climate risks. In this article, the EDHEC Student Finance Club (ESFC) invited Professor Gianfrate, organizer of this workshop, to speak about credit risk and climate change.

How European Investors Consider Introducing ESG with ETFs and in Factor investing

Since 2006, EDHEC-Risk Institute has annually surveyed European professional investors about their views and uses of ETFs, and more recently about their use of smart beta and factor investing strategies, as part of the Amundi research chair at EDHEC-Risk Institute on ETF, Indexing and Smart Beta Investment Strategies.This thirteenth edition of the survey focused on ESG investing, both in the context of ETFs, and smart beta and factor investing strategies, and highlighted a growing interest in the integration of an ESG component into investment.

EDHEC-Risk Institute has been cited widely in the business and industry press. A selection of articles may be found below.

• "EDHEC-Risk: Hedge Fund Strategies Consolidate Their Performances", Mondovisione (06/01/2021)
• "L'investissement responsable peut changer notre avenir", Le Point (17/12/2020)
  
• "Les critères ESG suscitent un intérêt grandissant chez les investisseurs", La Tribune (14/12/2020)
  
• "Indexing, Climate Impact and Beyond", Portfolio Institutional (08/12/2020)
  
• " Big Call: Fixed Income: ETFs pass their final test", ETF Stream (09/11/2020)
  
• "Half of EDHEC-Risk Alternative Indexes positive in September", HedgeWeek (05/11/2020)
  
• "Dealing with Distortions: Risk in the Covid Era", Treasury Management International (23/10/2020)
  
• "SRI/ESG at the expense of smart beta", Born2Invest.net (15/10/2020)
  
• " EDHEC-Risk ETF survey focuses on ESG", ETF Express (05/10/2020)
  
• "Avoiding 'sin stocks' is no longer enough for ESG ETFs", Financial Times (01/10/2020)
  
• "Which areas do investors want to see further ETF product development?", Portfolio Institutional (08/12/2020)
  

Senior Quantitative Research Engineer - Climate Finance Research Programme - London

As part of its development programme in the area of climate finance, and in order to strengthen its research potential on measuring and managing climate risks for investors' portfolios, the EDHEC group is recruiting a Senior Research Engineer in London, UK, within the "Advanced Factor & ESG Investing" Research Chair supported by EDHEC and Scientific Beta. The successful candidate will work under the guidance of the Scientific Beta Research Director and of the EDHEC Risk Institute. To apply, please send your CV and a cover letter to [email protected].