The annual PRI Awards took place in October showcasing projects taking a leadership role in responsible investment. The initiative received 120 entries by PRI signatories headquartered in 25 countries, and a panel of independent judges evaluated all projects under specific, weighted criteria.

It was fantastic to see clients being recognised for their contributions and we are delighted to shine the spotlight on Rockefeller Asset Management (RAM) for winning the ESG incorporation initiative of the year award.

RAM’s project titled “ESG Improvers: An Alpha Enhancing Factor” underscores the risk and return benefits of emphasizing ESG Improvers and applications across long-only & long-short fundamental and quantitative styles of investing. The company was the only U.S. based asset manager to win an award this year, as well as in 2019 when they won the ESG Research Report of the Year Award for their work with the UN assessing the implications of climate change on investment portfolios.

RAM believes that investors will increasingly differentiate between ESG Leaders and ESG Improvers – the latter are firms showing the greatest improvement in their ESG footprint – and that Improvers offers the potential for generating uncorrelated alpha over the long run. After nearly two years of research, they built a proprietary process to calculate a firm’s ESG trajectory known as Rockefeller’s ESG Improvers Score™ (REIS).

The ESG Improvers approach enhances RAM’s long-only and long-short fundamental research and idea generation process and informs their engagement approach that seeks to create shareholder value and catalyse positive ESG improvement.

If you would like to learn more about RAM’s ESG Improvers approach, please visit rockco.com/ram.