Towards a more sustainable future

Hi, my name is Steve Monnier and I'm the Client Sustainability Specialist here at BlackRock Australia. If it feels like the future is running at us, you're probably right. Market sentiment, policy reform, structural changes are transforming the investment landscape at an incredible pace. Our clients within this backdrop are setting more ambitious sustainability goals. They're setting goals to be carbon neutral by 2050. They're calling for greater levels of female participation in leadership roles. And they're also aligning their investments to solve global, environmental and social problems in addition to providing investment returns. In this environment, helping our clients achieve their sustainability and investment goals has never been more important. There are a lot of terms and acronyms in this space, from ethical investing, to responsible investing, or even sustainable investing. And often these terms are used interchangeably and they do mean different things to different people. So this is actually a great place to start. At BlackRock we define sustainable investing as combining the best of traditional investments with insights from society. These are traditionally non-financial insights and we bring this together to generate the best long-term outcomes for our clients. We believe that sustainability related issues can have real quantifiable impacts. So for us, sustainable investing is first about our fiduciary duty to clients. It's about finding ways to integrate sustainability in a way that's consistent with generating long-term financial performance. Secondly, it's about enhancing the way that we invest. It's about improving on traditional investment approaches to incorporate new data, new insights, in a way that drives our understanding of how we can measure and integrate sustainability related issues into being better long-term investors and providing better long-term outcomes for our clients. As we think about how to invest sustainably, we really want to approach it from the perspective of our clients, and they typically come to this from two impulses either to avoid or to advance. And that's really helped inform us with our thinking around developing a sustainable framework here at BlackRock. The first impulse to avoid is typically associated with avoiding exposure to certain companies, certain sectors, such as tobacco or weapons. And the other impulse that we see clients express is to align their capital with positive behaviours, positive outcomes. And increasingly what we see is clients think not just about how they can avoid exposures but also how they can advance their exposures. One of the common misconceptions I hear about sustainable investing is that it's about values. Now that really only tells you half the story. A part of our role is to help our clients reflect their values in their portfolios. But the other part is about adding value. It's about being a better investor and providing better returns. At BlackRock, we aim to be a leader in sustainable investing. Our fiduciary duty demands it. You, our client demands it. And it's about being a better investor. BlackRock has made sustainability our standard for investing and is committed to helping our clients navigate this environment. During 2020, we've been working hard to build sustainable, resilient and transparent portfolios. We've been working hard to also enhance the range of choice that we provide our clients in terms of sustainable solutions. And we've been working hard to enhance the transparency of our voting and engagement activities. For further information, please visit our website BlackRock.com or speak to your relationship manager.