Comgest’s Growth Emerging Markets fund has been recognised by Climetrics, a climate impact rating for funds, as one of the top five actively managed emerging markets equity funds for climate performance. Backed by CDP and ISS ESG, Climetrics aims to enable all investors to find funds that invest in companies better at managing issues related to climate change, water security and deforestation. The scoring system is based on three layers of analysis: a fund’s portfolio holdings, its investment policy, and asset manager governance of climate issues. Ratings are awarded on a scale of one-leaf (lowest rating) to five-leaf (highest rating). A high Climetrics rating indicates that, on average, they believe the companies in a fund’s portfolio are better at disclosing and managing material climate, water and deforestation issues compared to those in lower rated funds.
Comgest’s USD5.1 billion Growth Emerging Markets UCITS fund ranked amongst the five highest scores in Climetrics’ emerging markets category. Within the same ratings project, a number of Comgest’s other portfolios also scored highly, with funds in five other regions also receiving four-leaf ratings, including Global equity, European equity, Japan equity, US equity and Latin America equity. Climetrics uses a best-in-universe approach, comparing each fund against all others in its universe of over 17,000 rated funds.
Yann Gérain, ESG Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Comgest, says: “Being named one of the top five actively managed emerging markets equity funds by Climetrics for climate performance is testament to Comgest’s commitment to climate issues and speaks well of our team’s diligence in assessing the environmental impacts of our investments. The tendency of our portfolios to have low carbon and environmental footprints is also a natural result of the companies favoured by our quality growth investment style and our long-term approach to investing. We are actively engaging, both individually and collectively with the likes of the CDP, to encourage investee companies to improve on their environmental disclosures and to take a longer-term view when it comes to decision making on environmental matters. We are pleased that Comgest’s robust integrated ESG approach has been recognised by this award.”
