Oxana Losevskaya,
Independent Expert
Oxana has over 20 years of broad investment, banking and consulting experience with global companies such as EY, Citibank in Australia and Russia, Glitnir bank (Iceland), Hedge Fund and Bank of Russia. After serving as a Managing Director at Investment Company of Vnesheconombank VEB Capital, Oxana has set up her own consulting business SL Partners. Oxana is also FCCA and Global Council Member at ACCA.
Oxana shared with us her expert view on Sustainable development and ESG-reporting:
The winds of change stirred the world of investments upon adaptation of the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN (UN SDGs) in 2015. The UN Paris Agreement, signed by world leaders in 2016, sped up the process. Covid-19 escalated the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. Financial professional organizations such as ACCA call for collective action by business, finance professionals and society for social and environmental value creation. Without any doubt regulatory pressure will intensify the process and demand for sustainable business.
ESG funds have attracted record inflows during the coronavirus pandemic. Investors started looking not only for business profitability and high returns they became more interested in companies adopting environmental, social and governance practices. More and more investors want to invest in companies doing their business in accordance with the principle of sustainable development. To measure business sustainability investors study environmental, social and governance factors incorporated into the traditional financial analysis of a company. Each factor is measured and embedded into the final decision-making of investing into a company.
Russian financial market is no exception to the global trend. The global response to the threat of climate change is to lower use of carbon and encourage low-carbon and carbon neutral investments. Russian oil and gas companies are re-focusing on gas production as a greener fuel, replacing coal generators with gas power units, disposing assets with poor ESG parameters.
Investment decisions based on environmental and social aspects become more and more supported by sustainability ratings. For example, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have recently issued a report with sustainability ratings for Russian companies[1], which provide information for the global investment community on sustainability.
Without any doubt ESG has a great future and will change the world to make it a better place.
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[1] https://wwf.ru/upload/iblock/f66/GR_2020_rus_web.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1mHxI65qcNCsiErJM39xALCyVjx6cXjyll6lWWMPoCl3kddVXPRAxUWBA
