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Some of the country's largest asset managers, including Vanguard, Fidelity and American Century, received low marks in Morningstar's first assessment of asset managers' commitment to incorporating ESG factors in their investment processes and strategies.
Others, like BlackRock, which has stressed sustainability as its "new standard for investing," and Pimco, received the second-to-lowest rating of "Basic."
Morningstar evaluated 40 firms along with 107 individual strategies and 145 funds for the extent to which they integrate ESG factors into the investment process along with their commitment to do so. Each firm and strategy is rated on a four-point scale from "low" to "leader" with "basic" and "advanced" in between.
The Morningstar ESG Commitment Level, as the new rating system is called, will eventually extend to more asset managers and strategies covered by Morningstar analysts and to the funds receiving Morningstar analyst ratings.
The new rating, however, is separate from Morningstar's analyst rating, which focuses on analysts' expectations for a fund's performance over time compared to its category benchmark index. The ESG Commitment Level rating does not consider expected future performance per se, though ESG factors could affect long-term performance. Rather, it evaluates asset managers and strategies for their commitment to incorporating ESG factors into their processes and resources, and, in the case of asset managers, their active ownership activities.
"In an increasingly confusing area of investing with different approaches, standards, disclosures and more, the ESG Commitment Level will help investors discern funds and asset managers that truly focus on sustainable investing from those that incorporate ESG factors, but in a limited way," said Hortense Bioy, director of sustainability research for Morningstar in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC).
Of the 40 asset managers assessed in the inaugural ESG Commitment rating, six received the the top leader rating, including long-term socially responsible asset managers Calvert, Parnassus, Robeco and Stewart Investors. Six others received the next higher rating of advanced, among them AXA Investment Managers, Nuveen//TIAA and Schroeders. Sixteen were given a basic rating, and 12 were rated low for their ESG commitment.
Firms with the highest rating have "long histories committed to ESG, which "is core to their identity." Asset managers receiving the lowest (low) rating "typically just getting started on incorporating ESG considerations into their investment processes" if they incorporate them at all, according to Morningstar.
