The BNY Global Equity Fund is recognized for its comprehensive ESG integration across its investment process and disclosure activities.

The investment managers work closely with a separate Responsible Investment (RI) team to see that ESG is genuinely integrated into core investment decision making and analysis. The RI team will review and score ESG on every prospective investment company using a proprietary model to determine if it is investable or require changes to discount rates to reflect ESG risks. This model also included forward-looking metrics to allow for a higher ESG score if a company was on an ESG “transition” improvement plan.

The Manager has extensive disclosure and reporting on ESG activities, including a quarterly Responsible Investment Report detailing engagements with companies, and has already produced a Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) Report.

Engagement through coalitions, such as letters to fossil fuel companies, have yielded concrete results. However, we note that high-quality ESG activities have not been matched by benchmark outperformance, suggesting ESG implementation has yet to generate alpha.

This Fund has been reviewed by eleven industry veterans of the Benchmark judging committee.