Hewson Baltzell, who oversees product development for MSCI, a data and research firm known for its global indexes, said that while the number of financial investors deploying what were known as "environmental, social and governance" screens to assess investments, "most investors are still not into the double-bottom line".
Extending a similar perspective beyond the Venice case, we show here how an analysis of governance cost can help screening scale-related policy options in environmental matters.
Models that could be adapted exist in the form of committees that specialize in screening access to databases and in the governance of biobanks [ 8].
A spokesman for EIRIS, a not-for-profit organisation which researches investment companies on issues of "environmental and social governance", said a growing number of pension funds were interested in screening out arms and gun manufacturers.
Finally, the present article shows a possibility for screening scale-related policy options along with the cost profile of the governance arrangements involved.
With the help of an outfit called Audit Integrity, we also screened companies for factors such as earnings quality and board governance.
"This caused us to look very carefully at corporate governance issues in our screening process," said Barbara Krumsiek, the president of the Calvert Group.
"We act on corporate governance, but below the radar screen," says Alan Brown, chief investment officer at State Street Global Advisors.
But because few socially responsible funds have added corporate governance criteria to their social screens, the Wharton study sheds no light on this strategy's profitability.
Imagine this as another tipping point, like CALPERS and Goldman Sachs publicly stating last year that all their investments screen out environmental, social and governance issues (ESG) and look for positive impact.
