Les investisseurs institutionnels, acteurs du long terme ?

Dans une très récente tribune parue dans The Globe and Mail, la professeure Janis Sarra affirme que : « Institutional investors must lead our transition to long-term sustainability ». Dans le cadre de cet article, elle réagit à l’annonce par le président de l’Université de Toronto (Meric Gertler) de l’orientation des 6.5 milliards de dollars gérés par son institution au profit de la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique.

Institutional investors have an important role to play in charting a new course in corporate approaches to climate change, aimed at long-term sustainability. Institutional investors, such as pension funds, are by their nature “patient capital” because of their size in the market and illiquidity of their shares. Collectively, they can have a significant influence on corporate decision makers in tackling climate change.

Aside from our collective public interest in a sustainable world, there is a business case to be made. At risk is a significant portion of the value of diversified investment portfolios. Howard Covington of Cambridge and Raj Thamotheram of Oxford have suggested that value at risk due to climate change in just 15 years could result in a permanent reduction of up to 20 per cent in portfolio value. Hence, there are compelling reasons for capital-markets participants to aggressively press for immediate and comprehensive action. Indeed, it can be argued that institutional investors have a fiduciary duty to act to prevent risk to their portfolios from anthropogenic climate change. The strategies need to be multifold: decarbonization of electricity, a massive move to clean energy or lower carbon fuels, less waste in all sectors, improvement of forests and other natural carbon sinks.

There is a nascent but growing type of institutional shareholder activism called “forceful stewardship,” in which investors are demanding a recasting of fiduciary obligation away from short-term shareholder returns toward ethical obligations and reduction of long-term environmental risks. Forceful stewardship involves helping directors and officers of all types of businesses understand that it is a breach of their fiduciary duties to ignore long-term environmental risks such as climate change. This activism by our most powerful advocates in the market is an important development in the potential to change the current course of climate change.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 2 avril 2016 à 15 h 21 min.