ESG has formed a key part of our philosophy and process since the inception of the RBC Emerging Markets Equity Strategy (“the strategy”) in 2010, and we have always strived to expand our knowledge and efforts in this space.
We have looked to invest in management teams that share this ethos, focusing on companies that promote a strong culture of excellence, who look to build strong relationships with all stakeholders and invest for the long term.
Given this strong focus on ESG integration, the strategy already has strong climate-related credentials since it has lower carbon emissions than the benchmark. As part of our recognition of the need to achieve a just and orderly transition to net-zero, we have continued to make measuring and monitoring the climate-related risks and opportunities of the strategy a key focus of our ESG research and our engagement activities. We recently published our inaugural annual climate report1 and we provide further details within this report.
Another topic of discussion within this year’s report is whether ESG has gone too far. The widespread adoption of ESG in recent years has made it the target of several pushbacks, with critics contending that it has become the number one criterion for investment decisions and undermines traditional financial metrics. We explore each pushback in detail and view these debates as indicative of ESG’s growing relevance and a natural and necessary step in its maturation.
This year we spent some time analysing ESG risks and opportunities at a country level in emerging markets. Whilst our core ESG analysis is conducted at company-specific level, being aware of ESG factors at a country level is useful for our overall portfolio strategy, and for positioning our portfolios in areas of long-term structural growth while avoiding the risks. We include a number of country case studies, across a range of social and environmental factors.
Engagement continues to form a critical part of our investment process. We provide highlights of our activities as active owners over the course of the year, including company case studies. We also review the outcomes of our engagements, utilising our proprietary engagement tracker.
We hope that you enjoy these insights into our ESG activities and achievements, and we welcome any feedback on how we can improve our future efforts.
1 RBC Emerging Markets Equity Annual Climate Report 2023
For the full RBC Emerging Markets ESG report, please contact: institutions@phn.com