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coVeR Sustainable investing is a major growth area and will escalate in the next

decade as the millennial generation expands its investing influence

that investor attitudes towards ESG per- fuels; and strengthening our commitment Millennials are already estimated to
formance are changing. Following the to sustainability and transparency in our control $US24 trillion of global private
Brumadinho tailings spill, major investors investment stewardship activities,” Fink wealth and a further $US50 trillion is
led by the Church of England pension said in his letter. expected to pass from baby boomers to
fund, demanded companies in their port- Cheveley said Investec was focusing millennials in the US alone over the next
folio produce a full audit of their tailings more on ESG performance, and not only decade. By 2030, millennials are likely to
assets. The industry’s majors reacted im- for ethical reasons. hold five times the wealth they currently
mediately, as they did in January when “We find companies which perform do.
BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink better have ESG outperformance,” he Sustainability is at the heart of mil-
said his company would avoid invest- said. “How companies are reacting to lennials’ investing strategy and they are
ments in companies which “present a ESG is a good guide about how a com- increasingly willing to dig deep into the
high sustainability-related risk”. pany is being run at the senior level.” supply chain of their preferred consumer
“BlackRock announced a number of Sustainable investing is a major products.
initiatives to place sustainability at the growth area and according to the Global “Millennials want to know the prov-
centre of our investment approach, in- Sustainable Investment Review, it was enance of products; the environmental
cluding: making sustainability integral to valued at $US30 trillion in 2018, a 60% and social issues [attached to them],”
portfolio construction and risk manage- increase in two years. The category Mpumi Zikalala, chief executive at De
ment; exiting investments that present a is expected to grow its share of overall Beers, said during Mining Indaba. “They
high sustainability-related risk, such as funds under management over the next are purpose driven, you need to tell them
thermal coal producers; launching new decade as the millennial generation ex- why [they should invest] and provide
investment products that screen fossil pands its investing influence. proof points.”

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