Materiality-Driven Investing: The New ESG Focus?
Over the past decade, Environmental, Social, and Governance investing became a dominant framework for aligning capital with values. ESG labels proliferated across funds, indexes, and corporate disclosures, promising a simple way to assess sustainability and risk. Recently, however, a growing group of investors has begun moving away from broad ESG labels toward materiality-driven analysis, a more focused approach that emphasizes financially relevant sustainability factors. This shift reflects lessons learned about performance, risk management, data quality, and regulatory scrutiny.The Limits of ESG LabelsESG labels were designed to simplify complex information, but simplicity has come at a cost. Investors increasingly recognize several…
