14 Dec 2009

HESTA Super Fund has been named Sustainable Super Fund of the Year at the prestigious 9^th annual Ethical Investor Australian Sustainability Awards.

HESTA’s Executive Manager – Investments and Governance, Robert Fowler, said the award was a huge honour for HESTA and showed that fund members did not have to choose between good environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and good returns.

“Fund managers have not sufficiently recognised the risks introduced by poor ESG practices in the companies in which they invest. Our view is that these poor practices will ultimately lead to poorer returns for members,” Mr Fowler said

“We have worked to make sustainability a mainstream part of our investment criteria because ultimately we believe it will deliver better returns for members.”

Speaking at the awards ceremony at Federation Square in Melbourne, awards convenor Michael Walsh said HESTA’s investments team had distinguished itself by asking its fund managers to systematically integrate ESG considerations into the mainstream investment process.

“Its team leader has taken this further by spearheading the establishment of ESG Research Australia – an organisation aimed squarely at encouraging this process – which in just 12 months attracted 39 members with funds under management of $463 billion”, Mr Walsh said.

Mr Fowler said, “ESG Research Australia aims to get the whole investment chain thinking about ESG and to develop incentives to encourage stockbrokers to factor ESG into their analysis and pricing of Australian listed companies.”

Mr Fowler said the Sustainable Super Fund of the Year accolade was even more significant as it was not self-nominated – the nomination would have been made from inside the industry.