Quotes and insights from Amy O’Brien’s new book on Responsible Investing
Photo credit: Galina Nelyubova / Unsplash+
The challenge of analyzing companies
Amy O’Brien: „A company that excels at pursuing net zero policies, diversity in its workforce, and equality in its compensation practices may well provide investors with an uncomplicated metric for pikcing an ESG winner. What’s more difficult is sizing up a company that is not excelling in all ESG categories. In that case, the task for investors is to determine how to weigh or rank a „mixed record?“
ESG in the market-based economy
Amy O'Brien: „We want companies to change and improve their businesses in synch with the priorities of investors. This push and pull between shareholders and companies lies at the heart of our market-based economy. Through shareholder resolutions, investors engage with company leaders to act on a number of issues related to environmental and social issues, as well as corporate governance.“
Performance of companies and ESG data
Amy O'Brien: „Ultimately, the performance of companies is distilled into ESG data that we use to measure and organize the entire responsible investing proposition.“
The ESG Ecosystem
Amy O'Brien: "These days ESG has morphed from a movement into an industry predicated on rapidly evolving quantitative analysis (...) as well as value-driven priorities. Numerous "stakeholders" populate the space, from asset managers to investment advisors to non-profit groups to investors themselves."
"Oh, and let's not forget policymakers, who are becoming more important players with every passing year. This is the ESG ecosystem."
"But here's the thing about responsible investing - even though trillions of dollars worth of assets are now committed to the approach, it is still rooted in a coming together of like-minded people striving for a wiser and smarter way to manage assets. This connection manifests in different forms depending on who you are."
The Players: What Do Stakeholders Want from ESG? Unification of asset managers, companies, investors, regulators and no-profits and international groups.
Amy O'Brien:„Each stakeholder in the responsible investing proposition has a distinct role to play and measures their efficacy in different ways.
- For asset managers, it’s attracting more clients and money to manage. For companies, it’s winning over new generations of investors.
- For regulators, it’s about protecting investors from misleading practices and getting reliable disclosures from companies.
- For non-profits and international groups, it’s about driving industries and nations to change their ways.
- And for investors, the goal is aligning market returns with their priorities. Yet all these groups have to come together, with their unique missions intact, to meet the needs of new generations of investors and deliver the opportunities of ESG.
It’s kind of crazy how many organizations have sprung up over the years in service of an ESG agenda. In a way, this is a testament to the grassroots nature of this movement and its popular appeal. But this level of fragmentation isn’t, well, sustainable. Consolidation is needed. We may all be swimming in our own lanes, but hey, we’re all in the same pool. (…) The unification of responsible investing will be a defining throughline in the next phase of this story.“
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Amy O’Brien, Global Head of Responsible Investing, Nuveen, a TIAA company
„A Field Guide to Responsible Investing and Asset Management in the Age of Polycrises“ (2025)
