Sustainable Investing Insights from Bérénice Lasfargues, BNP Paribas
Bérénice Lasfargues is Sustainability Integration Lead at BNP Paribas Asset Management. In this role, she is in charge of the implementation of the firm's ESG integration policy, working closely with portfolio managers across all asset classes to more purposefully integrate ESG criteria in their portfolios; and manages the internal firm-wide network of ESG Champions in investment teams. The changing regulatory environment is placing increasing importance on ESG data, and in her role, Bérenice works on the evolution of the firm's ESG research platform (including development of BNPP AM proprietary ESG rating and SDG data models) and provides strategic guidance on the optimal flow of ESG data through the company. She also coordinates the firm's approach to impact investment, and leads on its ESG analysis in the ICT sector.
She is the representative for BNPP AM’s sustainable investment strategies and capabilities across the Americas, promoting the firm's expertise with clients and externally across the region.
Previously, she worked at the OECD, undertaking economic research on green and blended finance. She was also a legislative fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives and conducted fieldwork on climate change and development in emerging markets. Bérénice holds masters' degrees in engineering and environmental management from Ecole Centrale Paris (now CentraleSupelec) and the National University of Singapore, respectively. She is an EFFAS CESGA (Certified ESG Analyst) certificate holder.
Bérénice joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:
Why asset managers are looking so closely at sustainability and ESG goals
BNP’s sustainability investment beliefs and four standard pillars
How ESG data could become more valuable
Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals
Bérénice's Final Five Questions Responses
What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?
One piece of advice would be to get involved or keep up as much as you can with collaborative working groups and networks. Depending on your focus area or sector, there are so many. For example, if you are within the investment management industry, you could get involved with Principles for Responsible Investment, the Global Impact Investing network, or the Initial Investors Group on Climate Change, just to name a few. I was collectively marched towards mainstreaming sustainability for more cognitive diversity to solve common challenges and raise the bar across the board. So number one is get involved. Number two would be to put in the work into the training and knowing your stuff on sustainability.
It may seem from the outside, the ESG landscape is a bit fuzzy. We just talked about the fact that the market is fragmented. But ESG is now part of a firm's license to operate. Therefore there is a need to engage and upscale your workforce on this topic. There are great trainings that exist, the CFA Institute, the Fundamentals for Sustainability Accounting from SASB, the European Federation of Financial Society also has a training. Within BNP Pam we have a network of ESG champions. Each client and investment facing team has one, and they're required to get some formal certification on ESG. So it starts with people and upscaling your people so they have expertise to make the right judgment calls. Maybe a final one would be: develop your leadership skills as they relate to change management. All ESG jobs at the moment, unless you're working at a pure player firm, and even then, involve some element of persuasion and winning hearts and minds.
ESG is a journey, and along the journey you will need people and you will need to be able to convince people in other parts of the firm on the foundation of ESG. That is what change management is all about.
What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?
The momentum of the space, but also the increased scrutiny from a new set of stakeholders- regulators, retail, investors, consumers- clearly they shine the light on the fact that we have made so much progress. But there is still so much progress that we still need to make. In the current environment, there is a strong and very important push against greenwashing and that is welcome. I think it will make us only better as practitioners.
What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?
One short book, which is really a call to action, would be On Impact: A Guide to the Impact Revolution by Sir Ronald Cohen. This book is kind of a prelude of sorts to this much longer book titled Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change. So you can either read the short manifesto or the longer book depending on your bandwidth. But both books talk about the advent of the impact entrepreneurs and the potential paradigm shift from the risk return equation to a risk return impact equation in investment analysis, and also from measuring activities and inputs to measuring outcomes.
Also how at each level as consumers; citizens, employers, we can facilitate this transition in thinking on impact investing. Another book, I have to confess I'm only halfway through, but another book which I find very interesting is Moving Beyond Portfolio Theory by Jon Lukomnik James Hawley. We truly look at how modern portfolio theory has been instrumental in shaping traditional investment but also how it falls short in terms of including a consideration of systemic risk and market ecosystem impact. So that's a very tall order, tackling modern portfolio theory. That's what you're trying to do in this book.
What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?
In terms of resources, keeping up with market developments related to ESG investing. There are a few newsletters and resources that I would say most of us in the industry tend to read. There is Responsible Investors, Environmental Finance, Bloomberg Green, the Financial Times Moral Money newsletter just to name a few. Another resource for us is academia as well as looking at work done by international organizations, such as the IEA, the OCE or the World Bank Group. We at BMP Pam are a founding supporter of GRAFSI, which is the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investments. It is a global network of leading research universities founded in 2017 that aims to develop academic collaboration on the topic and they have aan annual conference.
The next one is in September at the University of Zurich and next year will be at Yale university in September 2023. I think one of the reasons we are very keen to support academia is that as sustainable investment practitioners in such a growing and emerging field, we really need to rely on high quality academic research to make sense of this ESG alphabet to support development of new methodologies, as well as inform development of our new policies in a way that is transparent.
Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work being done at BNP?
They can find information regarding our approach to sustainability on our corporate website group.bnpparibas. On it you can find global sustainability strategy, all our policies on integration, stewardship, regulatory documentation. We have a sustainability report but also have profiled members of our firm on what it means for them in the day to day sustainable investor for a changing world. I can also be reached out to directly on LinkedIn and Twitter.