Asia’s asset managers trail Europe in managing ESG risks: WWF-Singapore

ASSET managers in Asia lag their European counterparts in managing climate and nature-related risks, according to a report by WWF-Singapore.

The non-profit environmental group based the conclusion on a scoring framework it developed to measure asset managers’ ambitions on sustainability, as well as their policies, processes and products. Asia’s asset managers, excluding those in China and Japan, had an overall score of 33 per cent. The overall average score in Europe, meanwhile, was 77 per cent. Japan’s asset managers scored 62 per cent, while China was rated at 22 per cent.

Nonetheless, fund managers in Asia excluding Japan and China performed better than they did in 2021, with their scores improving by 3 percentage points. Europe and Japan’s asset managers also showed similar progress.