Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing Policies at Universities in the PNW
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Event Website
https://source2022.sched.com/
Start Date
19-5-2022
End Date
19-5-2022
Keywords
ESG, Sustainability, Investments
Abstract
To assess the potential impact of ESG investing on the CWU investment portfolio, we analyzed the relationship between company ESG scores and financial metrics of risk and return. Financial data consisted of investment returns and beta scores (a measure of risk), provided by S&P Capital IQ. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) provided CIR with ESG scores of 42,977 companies around the globe. Using the S&P 500 and the ISS company database as benchmarks, we compared how CWU’s investments paired within the scope of a 1, 3, 5, 10, 20-year ESG-Beta and ESG-Risk relationship. CWU displayed similar results to that of the S&P500 and ISS database – the ESG-Risk and ESG-Beta relationships were nonnegative. The literature review on ESG factors and financial performance suggested that there was a largely nonnegative relationship, like our findings as a council. Furthermore, we collected information on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing policies from a sample of universities in the Pacific Northwest and found that about half of the universities maintain such policies. We identified the full range of different ESG policies across the universities. We then determined which universities were leaders in the field and performed a sentiment analysis of their respective ESG statements. CWU currently does not include investment criteria with regards to sustainability. Improving upon this, we assessed the core values of CWU and other ESG criteria bearing Universities. This provided us with a list of ESG policy tools compatible with CWU’s value framework.
Recommended Citation
Cox, Davyn; Eck, Kameron; McKee, Glenn; Mussard, Magnusson; Tenerelli, Nye; and Zinn, Derek, "Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing Policies at Universities in the PNW" (2022). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 4.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2022/COB/4
Department/Program
Economics
Additional Mentoring Department
Finance
Additional Mentoring Department
Economics
Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing Policies at Universities in the PNW
To assess the potential impact of ESG investing on the CWU investment portfolio, we analyzed the relationship between company ESG scores and financial metrics of risk and return. Financial data consisted of investment returns and beta scores (a measure of risk), provided by S&P Capital IQ. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) provided CIR with ESG scores of 42,977 companies around the globe. Using the S&P 500 and the ISS company database as benchmarks, we compared how CWU’s investments paired within the scope of a 1, 3, 5, 10, 20-year ESG-Beta and ESG-Risk relationship. CWU displayed similar results to that of the S&P500 and ISS database – the ESG-Risk and ESG-Beta relationships were nonnegative. The literature review on ESG factors and financial performance suggested that there was a largely nonnegative relationship, like our findings as a council. Furthermore, we collected information on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing policies from a sample of universities in the Pacific Northwest and found that about half of the universities maintain such policies. We identified the full range of different ESG policies across the universities. We then determined which universities were leaders in the field and performed a sentiment analysis of their respective ESG statements. CWU currently does not include investment criteria with regards to sustainability. Improving upon this, we assessed the core values of CWU and other ESG criteria bearing Universities. This provided us with a list of ESG policy tools compatible with CWU’s value framework.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2022/COB/4
Faculty Mentor(s)
Thomas Tenerelli, Toni Sipic