Winning 'Investment consultant of the year' for the third year in a row, Mercer formed a global investment advisory team of sustainable investment (SI) specialists in 2004. Since then, the team has continued to expand and comprises 25 specialists in Asia Pacific, Europe, the UK, and North America.
In addition, the team is supported by over 50 ESG integration leads and so-called 'champions' across 24 countries.
It is this continued expansion of SI capabilities on a global scale that caught the attention of the Sustainable Investment Awards judging panel.
Mercer's global manager research team evaluates over 4,500 investment manager strategies on the extent to which they integrate ESG factors, and active ownership (voting and engagement) on a scale of ESG1 (the highest rating) down to ESG4 (the lowest rating).
MercerInsight, a cloud-based platform, allows Mercer staff and client subscribers to analyse data from over 6,700 investment managers and approximately 35,000 investment strategies, stored in Mercer's Global Investment Manager Database (GIMD).
Over 2022, Mercer continued to refine its climate transition advice framework and Analytics for Climate Transition (ACT) tool to support asset owners in setting out their climate transition plans.
Mercer also launched its Responsible Investment Total Evaluation (RITE) in the same year, building on the UK version of the tool it had launched in 2021.
The RITE tool aims to help clients evaluate each area of Mercer's Sustainable Investing Pathway – 'Beliefs, Policy, Process and Portfolio' – to show how they are doing on an A++ to C scale and how that compares to their peers. According to Mercer, over 1000 of its clients with more than $400 billion in assets used the RITE tool in 2022.
Mercer also actively participated at COP27, where it presented research on climate transition in emerging and frontier markets, "Advancing Transition Potential: Global Asset Manager Survey 2022", and the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Mercer's collaboration with the WEF, "Pacesetters: Setting the Tempo of Advanced Climate Investing" and associated Climate Benchmarking Tool was launched.
Ahead of attending COP15 on biodiversity in December 2022, Mercer also released its "Nature Alert" white paper. This report highlights the interconnectedness between climate and nature and provides a summary of how investors can start to incorporate nature into investment decision-making.
Over 2022 and into 2023, Mercer has continued to participate in the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) forum. Mercer is currently participating in the testing of the TNFD LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) framework.
"We are delighted to win this award for the third year in a row and to be recognised for our continued leadership in sustainable investment. We continue to innovate, influence, and integrate our sustainable investment expertise across our wider business to improve outcomes for our clients across the globe," commented Kate Brett, Mercer's global intellectual capital leader for sustainable investment.
