Sustainable investing can be a challenging topic for investors to approach because of the complexity of the environmental, social and governance issues at play and the bewildering and ever-expanding landscape of investment strategies, ESG data providers, and nomenclature. These are the “trees” of sustainable investing, and getting lost in them can prevent investors from missing the “forest”—the broad, system-wide, long-term efforts to respond to underlying ESG risks and opportunities. Keeping a big picture focus is essential to moving the financial system and the entities that operate within it toward a more sustainable future.
Arthur P. Steinmetz is chairman, CEO and president of OppenheimerFunds. Aniket Shah is head of sustainable investing at OppenheimerFunds.