An unusual business research partnership is presenting new CSR/investment support.
The Telegraph has just reported:
“Companies that pursue corporate sustainability policies are more likely to receive a boost to their share price… The University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment and Arabesque Asset Management, a sustainable investor, carried out a so-called meta-study of more than 190 academic studies and other literature on the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and performance. They found that corporate sustainability help to lower a business’s cost of capital and boosts a company’s operating performance.”
But that may be only half of the story. The other half is Arabesque itself.
The company, only a year old, focuses on value-based investment strategies with a methodology using ESG criteria blended with Islamic investment principles. In that regard, it follows rules set by the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions.
Context: An observation by Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:
“There is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world — a new business-minded middle class – that is building a vibrant new Muslim economy … their distinct blending of Islam and capitalism is the key to bringing lasting reform and defeating fundamentalism … They are the people the West can and must do business with.”