ENVIRONMENTAL, social and governance (ESG) concerns were increasingly influencing asset managers in their stock pics, said Bloomberg citing a report by Canada’s Canaccord which concluded that “… two-thirds of asset managers now employ one form of ESG investing over a portion of their investment mandates”.
Canaccord listed 16 top Canadian ESG picks in a research note to clients this week that included B2Gold that was “… committed to ESG principles and has published an annual Responsible Mining Report outlining the company’s economic, environmental, and social performance since 2016”.
“With Canadian ESG assets under management growing over 20% in the last two years, we believe momentum continues to build within the ESG investment landscape,” Canaccord’s Canadian equity research team added in its note.
The report was published amid heightened awareness among the investment community of the need to ensure mining firms ‘do the right thing’ in respect of the societies and communities in which they operate. Increasingly, the large mining firms have turned their backs on thermal coal production, BHP thought to be the latest to consider an exit.
The Australian firm’s CEO, Andrew Maczenzie told Reuters this week BHP would develop technology to curb emissions both inside and outside the company to stem climate change. It has pledged investment of $400m.
From next year onward, BHP will set a medium-term, science-based decarbonisation target, he said in a speech at an event organised by the Financial Times. “We won’t stop at the mine gate. We will also increase our focus on Scope 3 emissions,” he said.
