CRD Analytics' Mike Muyot on the SmartView Roundtable
Event to seek“the common messaging for solutions
to building long-term sustainable investing as a viable movement”
-Michael Muyot, President/Founder, CRD Analytics
CRD Analytics’ Mike Muyot on the SmartView ™ Roundtable:
“Great Event with World Class Panel of Experts”; Thought Leaders Convene to Attempt to “Crack the Code” of Sustainability Investing
(New York, NY, May 13 2010) — The genesis of the SmartView Roundtable arose from the ebb and flow of the marketplace. Among the highlights: Building investment assets using sustainability-themed products until now has been a “big challenge,” and today these products present unique opportunities; potential sponsors of sustainable indexes looked for confirmation of the market demand; yet others in the investment management space were stating that some of their clients were asking for their portfolios to be analyzed for ESG/ sustainability risk and opportunities. It was this need to assess the traction and momentum of sustainability investing that led to the Smartview™ Roundtable.
Michael Muyot is President and Founder of CRD Analytics, a partnering organization with NASDAQ OMX Exchange and Governance & Accountability Institute of the SmartView RoundtableMay 14th at the NASDAQ MarketSite. The Global Reporting Initiative –- pioneering developer of the world’s most widely-used sustainability reporting framework -- is the special guest organization.
Mr. Muyot cites the compelling need for the May Roundtable: “The main driver behind the SmartView Roundtable event was to tackle the challenges of building assets using sustainability-themed products like exchange traded funds (ETFS) or mutual funds. When we saw that environmentally- or socially-screened ETFs here in the US represented less than 8% of total assets invested in US-based ETFs, we knew it presented both a big challenge and opportunity.”
Thought leaders convene
“Additionally, we were hearing mixed stories from different folks in the industry about the traction and momentum building up to new products be developed and released using sustainable investing research and analysis,” Mr. Muyot said. “Index sponsors were saying they thought the space was interesting but were hearing little confirmation of market demand from their sales force. Meanwhile boutique and retail investment managers who work directly with ultra-high net worth investors, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutions such as endowments were saying the exact opposite; their clients were asking for their assets to be analyzed for environmental and social risk and opportunities. We decided to assemble a diverse set of thought leaders to get to the heart of the matter and see if we could crack the code.”
Mr. Muyot comments on the May 14th event: "In less than six months we have more than achieved our goal for creating a great event with a world class panel of experts who can discuss not just our common challenges, opportunities but also the common messaging for solutions to building long term sustainable investing as a viable movement. If we can all walk away with a common set of talking points to help build assets using ESG research and analysis and we are more connected with our fellow sustainable investing colleagues than this event will have been a great success.”
GRI ringing the bell is historic: sustainability has arrived on the Street
Mr. Muyot stated: “We are proud to co-host along with the Governance & Accountability Institute and NASDAQ the SmartView Roundtable event at the NASDAQ MarketSite in the heart of Times Square. We believe that this is historic event; the fact that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is ringing the closing bell is a landmark sign that says sustainability has arrived at Wall Street. The gathering on May 14th will go down in the books as significant tipping point. There is a shift in the mind of the investor to look beyond quarterly earnings report. Sustainable investing can mean many different things to people. We define it as a new more long-term focused approach that incorporates a Triple Bottom Line (people, planet & profit) view into evaluating whether to invest in a company and how active a shareholder you need to be with the companies you own.”
Mr. Muyot said: “In assessing any company, we like to ask: is this company strategically and tactically a well-run enterprise that is going to thrive in the new investing era? The global investing market is changing rapidly, information is available to everyone, and forward-looking company leaders are adapting and capitalizing on the numerous opportunities presented from such a dynamic and challenging environment. In this paradigm shift, there are leaders and there are laggards. One of the key areas that we will discuss is how do we as sustainable investors profit responsibly from identifying those different breed of companies.”
About CRD Analytics
CRD Analytics is an independent provider of investment analytics. The company's rigorous evaluation of financial, social, environmental and governance data is used to quantitatively determine the potential sustainability of a company, industry sector or investment portfolio, allowing for informed investment decisions and delivering optimized, risk-adjusted sustainable performance. Using its proprietary, patent-pending SmartViewTM Platform, CRD Analytics empowers its clients with actionable and performance-driven information distilled from large sets of complex data. For more information visit: www.crdanalytics.com
SmartView™ Roundtable Media Relations Contact:
Peter M. Hamilton
1.516.248.2383 x 18
Cell 516.375.6434
phamilton@ga-institute.com