It’s time to step up on sustainability

We had a pair of op-eds offered to us this week on the same subject — diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). One came from the Shareholder Association for Research and Education, better known by its acronym SHARE. Canada’s 2SLGBTQI+ Chamber of Commerce (CGLCC) submitted the other one. Pride Month starts on Sunday, which may explain the uptick in correspondence.

“Better performance on diversity, equity and inclusion has been repeatedly linked to better corporate performance measures,” wrote Kevin Thomas, CEO of SHARE.

Thomas goes on to quote Society for Human Resource Management data linking the erasure of DEI initiatives with talent attraction and retention problems — 82% of employees said it makes them less engaged at work, 80% said they’re planning to look for a new job as a result and 70% said they wouldn’t apply to an anti-DEI employer.

“Diverse teams outperform. Inclusive businesses are more resilient,” wrote Darrell Schuurman, CEO & Founder of CGLCC. “We know that innovation thrives when we bring together people with different experiences, ideas and worldviews. … [W]e need to run toward DEI, not away from it.”

Canada’s investment industry is hardly antagonistic toward DEI from an employment perspective. Putting people with different backgrounds, perspectives and talents together — and profiting when that sum is greater than those parts — has long been considered a best practice.

Our financial advice industry is practically a United Nations in miniature, with professionals from all over the world serving their local communities.

But we’re growing less reliable as an ally on the asset management front. Despite our oft-repeated focus on long time horizons and good governance, DEI is falling out of favour as an investment criterion.

To understand this, it’s best to look at the larger issue of sustainability. We’ve made two mistakes.

First, the industry mishandled the marketing of sustainable investments. We drew a distinction between these new products and their traditional counterparts when we should have been promoting the application of good governance considerations in portfolio management more broadly.

Second, institutional investors blew it on net zero. They propped themselves up as activist investors prepared to change the world. So far, the results have been an embarrassment to both themselves and the movement.

It’s not so much that the pendulum swung too far, it’s that we thought it was a pendulum in the first place. Rather than engage with those calling for a more sustainable approach to asset management, we reacted to their advocacy. We’re making the same mistake now with populist politicians who are using their newfound power to push back hard on the progressives.

Canada’s investment management industry should start acting like the thought leader it is. We have a deeply informed perspective on how money can be put to good use by multiple aligned interests. Let’s restart the discussion.

Kevin Press

Industry

Kevin Press is editorial director of Advisor.ca. Reach him at kevin@newcom.ca.