Kaitlin Bergan, BlackRock Head of Sustainable Client Solutions for the Americas, will speak at GCP’s Sustainability Summit

What is sustainable investing? How is sustainability playing out as a theme in the broader economy? How is this affecting investors? And, perhaps most importantly, how does sustainable investing pose both risks and opportunities for companies?

These topics and much more will be the focus of the keynote speech at GCP’s second annual Sustainability Summit on January 23, from Kaitlin Bergan, BlackRock Head of Sustainable Client Solutions, Americas.

Bergan, a leader in the sustainable investing space, sat down with GCP last month for a sneak peek at her keynote, and additional insights on the rapidly evolving space.

Let’s start with a straightforward question … what is sustainable investing?

You say this question is straightforward, but it’s actually very common. I think even people who've been working in this area for a long time have to think carefully about what this means, because there is a lot of terminology and ways that investors, companies and individuals define this. Sustainable investing is really an umbrella term capturing investment strategies that use the lens of environmental, social or governance themes and data as inputs into portfolio construction.

In some cases, it's using these considerations to think about financial risk and opportunity. In other cases, portfolios are specifically designed with sustainable objectives alongside financial objectives. 

At BlackRock, when we think about sustainable investing, we're thinking about it from a fiduciary standpoint – that is, how these considerations may help drive the best risk-adjusted performance for clients and how we can offer investment solutions to clients who choose to proactively put capital towards sustainable outcomes.

What has generated interest in sustainable investing?

The earliest versions of sustainable investing focused on values-based investing. For example, let’s say an individual, foundation or a religious institution decided, ‘I don't want to invest in certain companies that don't align with my values or mission.’ In this case, they could exclude these companies from their portfolio.
Over time, this has evolved to focus on the ways in which consideration of environmental, social, and governance factors may help drive company performance and financial returns. Further, investors who are interested in allocating their money towards investment products with sustainable themes have more options available to them than ever before.

What are some topics that you will be focusing on in your keynote?

The first, really, is how sustainability is playing out as a theme in the broader economy.

Secondly, some of the trends we've seen amongst investors, and also consumers in this space. How folks are thinking about putting their money towards sustainable themes, and again thinking about how these considerations affect company performance.

Third, I’ll be talking about how this rapidly evolving space poses both risks but also opportunities for companies across sectors.

Could you speak to some interesting trends in terms of where people are putting their money these days?
Absolutely. I think one of the most interesting things we've seen from an investment management lens, is our client base continuing to allocate money into sustainable investing strategies across a range of themes and asset classes. Increasingly, clients are asking us how to mitigate risk and capture opportunities associated with climate and the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Alongside that, we've seen certain consumers putting more importance on whether the company they're buying a service or good from is sustainable, and that can mean many different things. Maybe it's a reputational issue for the company and how they treat their employees. Maybe it's how well they're managing their carbon emissions. It can mean a wide range of things, depending on the company, but we do see consumers increasingly caring about this when they decide how to use their money.

Register for the Sustainability Summit here