We have recently been featured in the press for highlighting the issue of fund managers’ apparent lack of awareness regarding the culture of companies held in their funds. This is all thanks to research done by our Key To The Future Research Project, which has allowed us to identify a worrying trend: fund managers disregarding human rights in the face of commitments to environmental sustainability made by companies that they invest in.
Our views were most recently aired in an article written by Jennifer Hill, a freelance journalist who used to work as Deputy Money Editor for The Sunday Times. Jennifer’s article appeared in Citywire’s New Model Adviser magazine, and focussed on three companies held by multiple funds within the Key To The Future Model Portfolio Service: Tesla, Marsh & McLennan, and Nike.
Nike are one of the most prominent companies currently operating within China, with links to the use of Uyghur forced labour in Xinjang Province and elsewhere within the country. Jennifer Hill’s article features Ayres Punchard’s rebuttal of the widely-espoused fund manager talking point that “companies like Nike are a long way away from the use of sweatshop labour in their factories”. Our research is beginning to show that this is simply not true.
To find out more on this issue, and to see what the financial press are saying about the way we scrutinise funds held within the Key To The Future Model Portfolio Service, Jennifer Hill’s article is available to read below or via this link.
