Aligning Your Core Values with your Investment Dollars through ESG Investing with Katherine Bordlemay, CFA

Ep 047: In today's day and age, we're having more and more conversations with our financial planning and advisory clients that they want their values to be incorporated in all aspects of their lives. There are hot button items that they want to be impacting wherever possible. Maybe its climate. Maybe its social inequality. Maybe its disclosure of a company's business practices or countless others. 2020 was a solid reminder of these issues to many of us as COVID impacted the world significantly and there were urgent calls to address racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd. According to the Report on US Sustainable and Impact Investing Trends 2020, which tracked data as of year-end 2019, found that investors are considering "ESG" factors across $17 trillion of professionally managed assets, a 42 percent increase since 2018. So what is "ESG" and how can someone tie their values to their investments?  That's the premise of today's show!

Today's guest is the Head of Fundamental Equity Client Portfolio Management team for Emerging Markets and International Equities in the Americas, and an Emerging Markets specialist at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM). She leads the building of the Emerging Markets and International Equities franchise, drives business expansion, designs new portfolios, and communicates Fundamental Equity strategies to clients in the Americas. In her role as an Emerging Markets specialist, she is focused on helping clients gain appropriate access to emerging markets, as well as assisting with their strategic asset allocation decision making process.

She has 13 years of industry experience, joining Goldman Sachs in 2008. She graduated from Lehigh University magna cum laude with a B.S. in Finance in 2008. She  was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2012. Please welcome Katherine Bordlemay to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast!

 

*Goldman Sachs Disclosure* - https://f.hubspotusercontent20.net/hubfs/2506374/Goldman%20ESG%20Podcast%20Disclosures.pdf

 

Chapters:

Welcome, Katherine! [3:40]

What is Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and ESG? [9:55]

Why would someone want to invest their long-term savings in one of these vehicles (SRI/ESG)? [15:36]

How do asset managers evaluate ESG? [23:38]

As an investor, how can we know that an ESG’s strategy is really aligning with my values? [31:27]

How are asset managers themselves doing on ESG characteristics, including diversity and inclusion? [44:25]

What is Katherine’s definition of Retirement Success? [50:21]

Abby, Ben, and Curtis wrap-up the episode. [51:38]