Professor Laura T. Starks of McCombs Business School at the University of Texas is the recipient of the 2022 Skandia Research Award on Long-Term Savings. Professor Starks is one of the leading researchers in sustainable finance and has been granted the award for her contributions to the field of banking, insurance, and financial services.

The Swedish House of Finance, together with Skandia, invite practitioners and academics to the 2022 Skandia Award Seminar, entitled, “ESG Investing: Opportunities and Challenges”.

In this seminar, Professor Starks will talk about considerations regarding environment, social and governance (ESG) investing, starting with the differentiation in investor motivations: financial risk and return considerations (i.e., ESG value), nonpecuniary preferences (i.e., ESG values), or a combination of the two.

From a high level perspective, she will address questions regarding the investment approach, such as whether to employ a negative screening approach or a positive tilt to the portfolio; how to think about integrating ESG principles into the investment process as well as engaging firm management on ESG principles; the role of third-party ESG ratings; the questions surrounding ESG portfolio disclosures and regulatory requirements, and the evidence that exists on the effects and effectiveness of these issues.