M&G has added a new environmental, social and governance (ESG) fund to its range, taking a further step toward its plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its portfolios by 2050.
The fund will invest in attractively priced global green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked corporate bonds.
The strategy will be led by Ben Lord, who is in charge of M&G’s global corporate credit and inflation-linked portfolios and has been managing M&G UK Inflation Linked Corporate Bond since 2010, among others.
The fund has been in the bottom quartile of the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector over the past 10 years, but has managed to beat its peer group over the past three and five years and is in the top quartile over 12 months.
Total Return of fund vs sector and benchmark since launch
Source: FE Analytics
Following the launch of the new fund, Lord has pledged to “generate financial performance for clients throughout the economic cycle, while making sure sustainability factors are kept at heart of the proposition”.
His team’s effort is geared towards providing better ESG quality and climate profile compared to the global bond market.
Public fixed income chief investment officer (CIO) Jim Leaviss described the move as a “natural evolution to our range given our long history and experience in public fixed income investing” and a way to help “to address some of the biggest sustainability challenges we face on our planet”.
He also stressed investors’ influence in the ESG cause and invited them to channel capital responsibly to “companies seeking solutions to environmental and social challenges”.
Anticipating potential concerns over the performance of ethical investing, which Trustnet recently commented on, Leaviss promised “to achieve favourable ESG and sustainability outcomes whilst seeking to deliver attractive investment returns”.
A safeguarding system and ESG quality standards will also be in place to ward off revenue loss or disruption due to insufficient management of material ESG risks.