Extracting value through factor analysis
Transcription
Extracting value through factor analysis
Decomposing SRI performance Extracting Value Through Factor Analysis SEPTEMBER 2003 Decomposing SRI performance – Extracting Value Through Factor Analysis 1 Introduction 3 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 1 2 Method and Data 4 2.1 Sustainability Approach 4 2.2 Financial Data and Observation Period 6 2.3 Sustainable Scores (Factors) 6 2.4 Backtracking Performance Contribution of Sustainable Factors 7 3 Results & Discussion 3.1 Global Sustainability Ratings – Level I Scores 8 8 3.2 Environmental and Social Performance – Level II Scores 10 3.3 Social Strategy versus Stakeholder Relations – Level III Scores 11 3.4 Suppliers, Employees, Clients and General Public – Level IV Scores 12 3.5 Environmental Strategy versus actual Performance – Level III Scores 15 3.6 Environmental Life Cycle: From Cradle to Grave – Level IV Scores 16 4 Conclusion/Summary Christoph Butz Sustainable Investment Pictet Quants +41 (0)58 323 1853 cbutz@pictet.com 19 . 1. Introduction Why yet another study on SRI performance? There have been innumerable studies investigating the potential link between socially responsible investment (SRI) and financial performance over the last years1. So why would we want to add yet another to this long list of publications? There are two reasons. First, sustainable investment is crucial to the concept of sustainable development. Without financing streams being gradually redirected towards a more environmentally and socially compatible economy, the ultimate goal of sustainable development will never see the light of day. Therefore, any contribution that clarifies or substantiates the financial effects of socially responsible investment is welcome. Second, and maybe more important, most of the discussions to date have focused on the link between «sustainability» and financial performance, as if sustainability or the sustainable performance of a company were a single entity and easy to measure. By decomposing sustainability into its components, we can obtain valuable insights critical to sustainable asset management. The present study, therefore, decomposes sustainable performance into its constituent parts and investigates their influence on the financial performance of 288 listed European companies from January 1999 to July 2003. 1 See, for instance http://www.sristudies.org/ for a comprehensive bibliography on sustainability-related publications. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 3 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 2. Method and Data 2.1 Sustainability Approach 4 SRI normally follows bottom-up approach Sustainability research normally follows a bottom-up approach. Sustainabilityrelevant data is gathered and aggregated to compute an overall assessment of a company’s environmental and social compatibility. Unfortunately, as in other aggregation processes, information is inevitably lost on the way. While working on an aggregate level is easily understandable and convenient for most purposes - because there is only one overall sustainability factor to deal with - it is not necessarily so with a quantitative investment approach where the sub-elements of sustainability are considered to be mere factors and can – theoretically – be bet upon individually. Environmental and Social Performance Most people would agree that the sustainability of a company should encompass – besides its economic viability, which will be taken into account later - both its environmental and its social responsibility (cf. Fig A, below). SUSTAINABILITY TRIANGLE Economy “Sustainability” Environment Society Fig. A. Sustainability triangle comprising the three pillars of sustainability: Economy, Environment and Society. Sustainability Model (the PSVC Pyramid) We therefore adopt this approach and decompose the final rating into two distinct scores: One for the environmental and one for the social performance. We call these level II scores in what follows. Fig. B below illustrates the hierarchical structure and the subdivision into further scoring levels. This underlying sustainability model has been developed by Pictet and is used for all our sustainable investment products. It is also referred to as the Pictet Sustainable Value Chain (PSVC). Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . OVERVIEW OF THE SUSTAINABILITY MODEL USED 5 Scoring level I II III IV Global Sustainability Score Environmental Value Chain Social Value Chain Environmental Strategy Life Cycle Social Strategy Stakeholder Environmental Management Sourcing & Suppliers Social Management Employees Environmental Policy Production Processes Social Policy Suppliers Environmental Reporting Products & Services Social Reporting Shareholder Public/NGOs Clients Fig. B. Overview of the sustainability model used. The Global Sustainability Score on the apex of the pyramid is broken down consecutively into 4 different scoring levels. Breaking down the Environmental Value Chain Environmental compatibility or the «Environmental Value Chain» can then be further broken down into a strategic part on the one hand (Environmental Strategy) and measurable environmental performance over the entire life cycle on the other, such as emission data, environmental compatibility of sourcing activities, production processes as well as of products & services (Life Cycle). Environmental Strategy and Life Cycle are called level III scores. A further breakdown will take us to the next underlying level: The environmental strategy of a company comprises its pertinent management, policy and reporting activities, while the life cycle encompasses all value-creating steps from sourcing through internal production processes to the products & services level. According to Fig. B these elements are treated as level IV scores. Decomposing the Social Value Chain The social performance or the «Social Value Chain» can be disaggregated in much the same way. The social strategy expresses the company’s awareness of social issues and the tools to deal with them, while the actual social performance in the field must be evaluated by assessing the company’s interaction with its diverse stakeholders. Social strategy and stakeholder relations are also level III scores. Subsequently, the social strategy of a company can then be further decomposed into its social policy, social reporting activity as well as the respective management and control tools deployed. Stakeholder relations can obviously be broken down into individual stakeholder groups such as suppliers, clients, shareholders, employees and the general public. The respective scores for these factors are considered to be level IV scores. Further breakdown is of little avail to investors A further decomposition for both the environment and the social sphere is feasible and is indeed also practised when the raw data is aggregated in a bottom-up approach. However, for most practical cases, such decomposition is of little avail to an investor interested foremost in the financial performance of his preferenceguided investment strategy. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 2.2 Financial Data and Observation Period 6 288 European companies investigated over 41/2 years Financial performance was measured using weekly returns of originally 360 European stocks, the majority of them being part of the MSCI Europe and representing more than 90% of MSCI Europe market capitalisation as of July 2003. We have only worked with companies where 5 years of consistent financial data were available and which were quoted on the stock exchange during the entire observation period from January 1999 to July 2003. Corporations that merged with others or were subject to a takeover or bankruptcy during the observation period were discarded. We had to put up with the subsequent survivorship bias due to the lack of a long-standing time series of sustainable scores (see also 2.3, below). Datastream was used as financial database. Altogether 288 corporations - out of a total of 350 for which sustainability factors were available - were included in the empirical analysis. A complete list of the investigated stocks can be found in the appendix. The investigation period from January 1999 to end of July 2003 was chosen for the following reasons: 1. In order to allow for a sufficiently large number of companies to be included and 2. One often stated claim of SRI being its mid to long-term orientation, 41/2 years seem to represent a reasonable mid-term time frame. 2.3 Sustainable Scores (Factors) PSVC sets out with 120-130 basic indicators provided by an external research partner The sustainable scores (factors) are calculated using a proprietary sustainability model called the Pictet Sustainable Value Chain or PSVC (see chapter 2.1, above). The collection of primary sustainability-related research is outsourced to a renowned information provider specialised in the area (the SiRi Group). The PSVC uses between 120 and 130 indicators that form what we call raw data or basic bricks. The external research partner provides a rating for each of these bricks. Pictet’s Quantitative Analysis team then transforms these ratings into numerical values and successively weights and aggregates these initial values into the sustainability scores (factors) used for this analysis. Sustainability scores are normalised and easy to interpret Pictet does not interfere with the sustainable raw data that is provided by the SiRi Group. It is up to the latter to design appropriate sub-indicators and sub-criteria in order to determine a meaningful rating for the basic bricks. Usually, our research partner will use a mix of absolute and sector-specific indicators, e.g. the rating for product development will have to be determined differently when looking at a carmaker than when looking at a financial service provider. The sustainable scores computed by the PSVC model are statistically normalised across the entire universe. The scores have an average of zero and a standard deviation of one, which lends itself to easy interpretation: A company with a score of 1 lies one standard deviation above the average, while a company with a –2 score will lie two standard deviations below the average etc. The scores are then centred to the average of the respective MSCI industry group. Working with MSCI industry group level 2, we could attribute the investigated companies into 23 different industrial subsets. Scores can be directly compared to each other within a certain industrial sector, but they cannot be compared across different MSCI sectors. Factors are held constant over time Historical (time series of) sustainable scores were not available for the entire investigation period of 41/2 years. We have thus taken the sustainability factors such as computed in February 2002 assuming thereby that these factors were stable over time. Due to lack of pertinent data, this admittedly simplified approach is very often used also in the most recent quantitative studies1, although a few papers have also tried to go beyond mere backtracking. However, the latter studies were faced with other drawbacks such as a relatively short observation period or a limited number of observations2. 2.4 Backtracking Performance Contribution of Sustainable Factors Sustainable scores as active weights in a long-short portfolio The sustainable scores were implemented as active weights in the portfolio. The sustainable scores being normalised, the 288 European companies finally included in the calculation constitute a zero-cost long-short portfolio. The results of the study can be interpreted as the cumulative (sustainably) active performance of the European investment universe with regard to a specific factor, a construction which is per se applicable to any benchmark. When the term benchmark is used in the following, it refers to the underlying universe of the 288 companies included in the investigation. As mentioned before, the sustainable scores are held constant over time, which corresponds to a weekly rebalancing of the portfolio, given the weekly periodicity of the financial performance data. 1 Cf. Ziegler/Rennings/Schröder (2002), The Effect of Environmental and Social Performance on the Shareholder Value of European Stock Corporations, Discussion Paper No. 02-32,Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). 2 Plattner/Butz (2000), SRI- – a statistical analysis of returns, Sarasin Basic Report, 2000. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 7 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 3. Results & Discussion 3.1 Global Sustainability Ratings — Level I Scores 8 Three sustainable scenarios: equally weighted, sustainably weighted and financially enhanced Graph 1 displays the results of our calculations on the topmost level of aggregation (Global Sustainability Score). The following three strategies were backtested: A. This scenario follows a process where raw data is indiscriminately aggregated on an equally weighted basis and transformed into a global sustainability rating. Strategy A seems clearly detrimental to the financial performance of the stocks observed. Over the observation period, such an indiscriminate or «blind» aggregation process would have cost the investor more than 11% vs. benchmark. B. Here, aggregation weights were judiciously applied to reflect the underlying sustainable relevance of the indicators and sub-elements that make up the global sustainability rating (level II to IV scores). It was assumed on level III, for example, that the actual performance in the field (Life Cycle and Stakeholder, respectively) is worth more than just having a good strategy in place (Environmental and Social Strategy, respectively) or that the relevance of environmental and social aspects strongly depend on the specific MSCI sectors in which the companies are active. This scenario can thus be termed the “fundamental” sustainability scenario, since weights are exclusively applied as a function of the underlying importance to sustainability. The backtracking of strategy B led to two interesting results: • First, a sustainably weighted strategy was much more successful than simply aggregating the basic indicators indiscriminately. Hence it may be inferred that it is indeed possible to extract substantial additional value by carefully analysing the underlying industrial processes and by applying aggregation weights accordingly. • Second, even with a fundamentally correct weighting and aggregation strategy, the financial performance still seems to have been slightly penalised by approximately 3% over the entire investigation period. This is a rather surprising result, since the majority of empirical studies conducted over the past years suggest that there is in fact rather a positive correlation between sustainable behaviour and financial performance3. C. «Enhanced» sustainability strategy. Setting out with scenario B described above, we computed the information ratio of all the sustainable factors of level IV in order to determine the financial reliability of the sustainable signal. We then systematically enhanced or tilted the weightings of the underlying sustainable factors accordingly. 3 Cf., for instance, Margolis/Walsh (2001), People and Profits – The Search between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah (NJ) or Garz/Volk/Gilles (2002), More gain than pain – SRI: Sustainability pays off, WestLB Panmure. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . CONTRIBUTION OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY FACTOR 110 9 Global Sustainability Factor, sustainably enhanced Global Sustainability Factor, pure sustainable weighting Global Sustainability Factor, equally weighted 105 100 95 90 85 12.98 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 06.03 Graph 1. Factor returns on level I (Global Sustainability Scores). The graph displays the performance contribution of three different weighting scenarios over the last four and a half years. Precautionary approach; maximum allowed deviation However, while fully recognising the performance-enhancing claim of sustainable investment, we were – for philosophical and precautionary reasons - not willing to compromise the overriding objective of SRI, namely to invest in truly sustainable companies. We therefore had to strike a compromise between a fundamentally sustainable viewpoint and one driven more by financial performance. The performance tilt applied was thus subject to several restrictions: All elements that had originally been identified as contributing to the overall sustainability of a company (sustainable factors) must carry a minimum weight of 3%. In other words, we did not allow the model to go short on the environment and long on social indicators – although, from a purely financial point of view, this would indeed seem to have been a promising strategy. The deviation from the purely sustainably determined weights was restricted to +/-15%, thus guaranteeing that the performance-enhanced weighting did not thwart the underlying fundamental sustainability analysis. «Enhanced» sustainable scenario has beaten the benchmark The results of the performance-tilted or «enhanced» scenario C are very encouraging. It started out flat versus benchmark, then slightly underperformed the MSCI Europe during 2000-2001, but clearly outperformed the benchmark from the third quarter of 2001 until the third quarter of 2002. Since then, the enhanced scenario seems to have lost ground again versus the benchmark, but it still finished slightly higher (+1.56%) after four and a half years. Again, the following two observations are important: • First, the findings suggest that it is indeed possible to considerably enhance the performance of sustainable investment by introducing a financial performance tilt and • Second, this can be effected without unduly compromising the essence of fundamental sustainability analysis. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . A further caution seems appropriate: The performance tilt being based on knowledge accumulated over the entire observation period, the results are necessarily of an in-sample nature, meaning that in real life it would have been extremely difficult to match the performance shown on graph 1. However, this also means that it has indeed been possible to systematically outperform the universe by carefully weighting sustainably and financially tilted factors. 10 Negative contribution of sustainability in geo-politically unstable times We would also like to point out the very negative performance contribution that the Global Sustainability factor – and in fact most of the underlying factors as we will see later on - showed in the last quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003. This period was certainly characterised by an unusual degree of geopolitical tension (war against terrorism, the Iraq crisis). In such unstable times of heightened military activities it seems likely that sustainable investment strategies, the majority of which exclude companies involved in armaments, for example, might face some difficulties. The negative performance in the last quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003 is not restricted to our investment universe alone but became manifest also, to a greater or lesser extent, in other sustainable investment products available on the market – quite independently from the specific research methodology applied. It seems indeed that sustainable factors were thus penalised performance-wise almost across the board during that period. 3.2 Environmental and Social Performance — Level II Scores Environmental versus social factors As described in chapter 2 above, the Global Sustainability Score of a company can be decomposed into its two principal components: its environmental and social performance, respectively. We have run the calculations again for two differently weighted scenarios (see Graph 2, below): The first scenario is perfectly equally-weighted, while the second, sustainably weighted scenario allocates less importance to the existence of a strong environmental/social strategy, with more importance attached to a company’s actual performance «in the field». CONTRIBUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS Decomposing Sustainability - Environmental vs. Social Value Chain (Level II Scores) 120 115 Env. Value Chain, sustainably enhanced Env.Value Chain, equally weighted Soc. Value Chain, sustainably enhanced Soc.Value Chain, equally weighted 110 105 100 95 90 85 12.98 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 06.03 Graph 2. Factor returns on level II: Performance contribution of the environmental and the social value chain. Weighting scheme decisive; particularly for the social value chain The results lead us to three interesting observations: 11 • First, the results strongly depend on the weighting scheme applied. For the sustainably weighted tilted scenario, the social score clearly outperforms the environmental score by almost 7%, whereas for the equally weighted strategy, the outperformance of the social factor was just 2.1% over the period, although in certain periods, one factor seems to have dominated the other more distinctly and vice versa. • Second, for the social dimension, the difference between the equally weighted scenario and the enhanced sustainability scenario is quite impressive, whereas it is only moderately so for the environment. Intuitively, we would rather expect the opposite. Obviously, it does make a huge difference whether we indiscriminately consider all stakeholders to have the same relevance or if we determine their importance on an industry-specific basis, e.g. supply chain management would obviously be more important to the food or textile industry than to a company operating exclusively in the service industry. For the environmental sphere, this weighting effect is much less pronounced, although it is still possible to add value by applying a sustainably meaningful weighting, e.g. by attributing an above-average weight to a car manufacturer’s performance in product design. A more detailed analysis revealed that the environmental performance of the companies across the different production steps (sourcing, own production processes, products & services) were in general much more homogenous than in the social area. That is why the weighting has less effect. Nevertheless, the weighted scenario still beats the equally weighted scenario by almost 6% over the complete observation period. • Third, it is noteworthy that one and only one investment strategy (betting on the “enhanced” and sustainably weighted social factor) was able to outperform the benchmark over the past 55 months. Based solely on these findings and taking a purely financial standpoint, i.e. ignoring all sustainability-related concerns, one might indeed conclude that it would be best to bet exclusively on socially compatible companies and to forget about environmental performance altogether. This is a surprising result that also sharply contradicts the findings of other studies which established that it was predominantly environmental performance that ultimately paid off, whereas social compatibility’s effect on financial performance was at best indifferent4. Only the sustainably enhanced social factor outperformed 3.3 Social Strategy versus Stakeholder Relations — Level III Scores Breaking down the Social Value Chain… Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . Having found that the social assessment of a company obviously goes hand in hand with its financial outperformance over the observation period, we will now dig even deeper and break down the social score into its two main components, which are – according to our PSVC methodology described above - the strategic positioning of the company regarding social issues (Social Strategy) and the effective quality of its relationship with its different stakeholders (Stakeholder Relations). 4 Cf. Plattner/Butz (2000), see fn. 2 for details. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 12 Out-performance attributable to good stakeholder relations As Graph 3 below illustrates, the analysis revealed that the outperformance of the entire social value chain clearly stems from the actual quality of the stakeholder relations, whereas the mere existence of a good social strategy seems rather to have been negatively correlated with financial performance! The observation about the relative performance of the strategy factor and the stakeholder factor holds true for both the equally weighted scenario and the «enhanced» sustainable scenario alike, although, in absolute terms, the outperformance of the tilted sustainable scenario was even higher, whereas the underperformance of the strategic factor was less marked. SOCIAL STRATEGY VERSUS STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS 120 115 Strategy, sustainably enhanced Strategy, equally weighted Stakeholder, sustainably enhanced Stakeholder, equally weighted 110 105 100 95 90 85 12.98 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 Graph 3. Factor returns on scoring level III: Social Strategy versus actual Stakeholder Relations. Strategic aspects are less important The obvious gap between the strategic and the stakeholder factor return leaves us somewhat perplexed. Although from a sustainable point of view, the existence of an appropriate social strategy and the respective management tools is generally believed to be crucial when trying to improve the relationship with stakeholders, our findings strongly suggest that the importance of procedural and formal aspects of the social value chain should not be overstated, at least not from a financial contribution point of view. Apart from the mentioned performance gap, it is also obvious that the sustainably weighted scenario largely dominates the unweighted scenario. This is the case for both the strategic part of the social value chain and the stakeholder part. Only the latter outperformed the benchmark over the entire observation period. 3.4 Suppliers, Employees, Clients and General Public – Level IV Scores Breakdown of stakeholder relations Let us now decompose the stakeholder score – which, according to our findings, proved to be an excellent proxy for financial performance – even further into its underlying components. Actual stakeholder relations (the performance «in the field») are best broken down into the individual stakeholder groups: employees, suppliers, stakeholders, clients and the general public. Good relations with clients and the public are rewarded Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . The results discussed hereafter are displayed in Graph 4, below. 13 It strikes the eye that only two stakeholder groups out of five seem to beat the benchmark consistently over the observation period: Clients (+5.7%) and the General Public (+8.9%). On the other hand, a company’s relations with its employees seem to have no clear-cut effect on financial performance, whereas the alphas stemming from the shareholders’ (corporate governance) and the suppliers’ scores proved to be negative (-7.4% and -9.5% at the end of the period, respectively), although both factors have seen a substantial rebound in the second quarter of the current year. The outperformance generated by the client and general public factors is rather impressive, a result which is, if not in its extent then at least in its essence, in line with assumptions underlying the sustainability model used. The arguments put forward to include client relations in any sustainability analysis claim that it is crucial for any company to be able to sell its products and/or services at sustainable margins. Loyal customers and clients are therefore supposed to be key to any successful economic activity. The results for the sustainability factor «General Public» are equally in accordance with the expectations of the sustainable investment community. They generally believe that constructive and transparent relations with the authorities and the communities are of paramount importance for a company, since its so-called «licenceto-operate» strongly depends on how it has fulfilled its responsibilities toward the public in the past and how the company is generally perceived in the public eye. CONTRIBUTION OF INDIVIDUAL STAKEHOLDER GROUPS 120 115 110 Public, sustainably enhanced Clients, sustainably enhanced Employees, sustainably enhanced Shareholder sustainably enhanced Suppliers, sustainably enhanced 105 100 95 90 85 80 12.98 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 06.03 Graph 4. Factor returns, level IV: Performance contribution of individual stakeholder groups for the sustainably weighted and enhanced scenario. Labour relations essentially flat The factor measuring the quality of a company’s relations with its employees initially made a negative performance contribution, but from the third quarter 2000 onwards until the third quarter 2002, good labour relations clearly had a benign effect on the financial performance of the investigated companies. In the last year of our observation period, the contribution of this factor has again fallen behind benchmark. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that over the entire period the factor Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . Employees had no effect on the financial performance. Depending on one’s standpoint, this indifferent result might be viewed as disappointing. On the other hand, it does evidence, that maintaining good relations with employees does not cost the companies anything in the long run. 14 Negative contribution of Corporate Governance factor How does the negative contribution of the shareholder factor fit in with the supposedly increasing importance of corporate governance in the aftermath of the widely publicised balance sheet scandals? We would like to venture the following explanation: It was claimed above that the social strategy measures the strategic positioning of the company whereas stakeholder relations measure the actual performance «in the field». Of all the stakeholder relations analysed, this is maybe least true for the shareholder factor. The indicators for determining the shareholder rating are based on local best practice, pertinent codes and recommendations, and are thus necessarily of a rather formal and procedural nature. The stakeholder rating is thus more comparable in nature to the strategic factors than to the remaining stakeholder ratings. Having established, that strategic factors have consistently underperformed the benchmark over the last 5 years, this might represent a good argument as to why the shareholder factor is not rewarded either. However, the conclusion that good corporate governance does not matter is most probably erroneous. The results may also suggest that corporate governance principles are best enforced by other means, e.g. by actively exercising voting rights or engaging in a dialogue instead of merely relying on formal compliance criteria. It is also interesting to note that the intermediate outperformance in the year from fourth quarter of 2001 to the third quarter of 2002 falls into a period when corporate governance issues were on top of many a business agenda in the aftermath of the different accounting scandals (the same temporary outperformance can be observed for the factors General Public and Employees, though). Good supplier relations were not rewarded either Even more difficult to interpret is the negative performance contribution of the supplier relations factor. This finding clearly goes against the beliefs generally put forward by sustainable investment proponents. Arguments supporting this view generally assume that systematic supply chain management and the cultivation of good relations with suppliers are important factors for the success of a company. At least performance-wise, our results do not confirm this view. The results even seem to suggest that the companies that were able to pass the pressure along the supply chain were (financially) rewarded for doing so. However, we also know that exposure to controversial issues in the supply chain is very different from sector to sector. Some industries (food, textile etc.) are particularly exposed, and a more detailed analysis undertaken did reveal that if the same calculations are done for particularly exposed industries alone, then the contribution seems to be the reverse. However, the objective of this study is to present results that are solid from a statistical point of view. And we do not have enough observations in the highly exposed sectors to allow for conclusive results. The supplier factor shown in Graph 4 therefore expresses the performance contribution of the suppliers’ rating of all 288 companies, and, undeniably, for most of these companies, good supplier relations indeed seem to have been of no or even negative financial consequence. Precautionary approach. Sustainable criteria cannot be shorted Once again, by taking a purely financial view it could be inferred that going short on suppliers and shareholders would increase the sustainable alpha stemming from the social value chain. However, as stated before, we have chosen not to deviate too far from a sustainably meaningful weighting scheme. The decision to do so could also be interpreted as a precautionary approach: In fact we can never fully exclude the existence of (hidden) synergies or interdependencies between factors. By decomposing the performance into sub-elements, we simply acted as if the factors were orthogonal and mutually independent. The fact that there is no overlap in indicators used to calculate the scores for two different stakeholder groups does not prove, however, that independence is always the case. It cannot therefore be excluded that a certain performance in one factor helps to achieve a good performance in another, but the «facilitating» itself does not necessarily have to show a positive contribution. 3.5 Environmental Strategy versus actual Performance – Level III Scores Strategic positioning versus actual performance As we did for the Social Value Chain factor, we now decompose the Environmental Value Chain factor into its two main components, which are the strategic positioning of the company regarding environmental issues in general (Environmental Strategy) and its actual environmental performance over the entire life cycle of its products and services (Life Cycle). As Graph 5 below illustrates, the results clearly show that the overall underperformance of the so-called Environmental Value Chain we have already pointed out can be explained to a large extent by the clear underperformance of the environmental strategy factor, whereas the contribution of environmental performance «in the field» was only slightly negative over the entire observation period. A startling gap of 15.1 % and 12.8 %, respectively, was found for both the equally weighted scenario and the sustainably enhanced scenario, which proves that the underperformance of the strategic factor is not just due to weighting effects but seems to be rather systematic. ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY VERSUS LIFE CYCLE (LIFE CYCLE) 100 95 90 85 80 12.98 Env. Life Cycle, sustainably enhanced Env. Life Cycle, equally weighted Env.Strategy, sustainably enhanced Env.Strategy, equally weighted 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 06.03 Graph 5. Factor returns on level III: Environmental strategy versus actual environmental performance along the life cycle. Comparison between the equally weighted and the sustainably enhanced weighting scenario. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 15 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 16 Strategic factors under-performed As for the Social Value Chain, the performance gap between the strategic factor and the performance «in-the-field» factor is quite amazing. Although from a sustainable point of view, having a clear environmental strategy and an appropriate environmental management system is generally believed to be very important for a company when trying to reduce the environmental impact of its business activities, our findings suggest – even more strongly than for the social sphere – that in terms of financial performance contribution, procedural and formal aspects do not seem to have been rewarded by financial markets. No remarkable difference between weighting schemes Interestingly, there are only small differences between the equally weighted and the sustainably enhanced scenario. For the life cycle factor the unweighted scenario seems even to have slightly dominated the sustainably weighted scenario for most of the time. Only towards the end of the observation period has the sustainably enhanced scenario taken the lead over its unweighted counterpart. For the environmental strategy factor, the sustainably weighted scenario seems to have dominated the equally weighted scenario consistently. However, the difference is small and given the stark underperformance of the strategy factor as a whole, we cannot draw any useful conclusions. The results thus suggest that a careful industry-specific weighting scheme could only add very limited value over an unweighted aggregation scheme during the last 41/2 years. Again, this observation goes against the established (sustainable) point of view, which would rather claim that applying a judicious weighting scheme based on ecological process know-how almost certainly influences the outcome of the overall result. What counts is the de facto performance, where data is generally scarce… The indifference of the weighting scheme applied might be surprising, but let us not forget the much more fundamental insight already mentioned above: Based on the results of our investigations, what really seems to count for a company’s financial performance seems to be its actual environmental performance in the field and not the existence of a formal commitment or the level of its environmental reporting standards. This finding is paramount because: • The actual (measured) environmental performance is also the only thing that counts from an ecosystem point of view. Plainly speaking, nature does not care whether there is a well-formulated and publicised environmental policy, but only cares for the results, i.e. real reductions in environmental loads. • Most research agencies have a strong qualitative bias in their approach to sustainability research. Quantitative data and indicators which would actually give more insight into a company’s real environmental performance is still scarce, whereas procedural and formal criteria are abundant. However, the flagrant gap in performance contribution between strategic and real performance factors is strong evidence for the need of a more quantitative approach to environmental analysis. 3.6 Environmental Life Cycle: From Cradle to Grave – Level IV Scores Decomposing the Life Cycle We are now going to decompose the Life Cycle score into its underlying components in order to see whether we can gain more information. We remember (cf. Fig B, above) that the Life Cycle - the performance «in the field» - is broken down into the different production steps according to the so-called «from-cradle-to-grave» principle, i.e. assessing environmental impacts engendered by a company’s sourcing practices, at its suppliers’premises, inhouse production processes as well as at the products and services level. The results discussed hereafter are displayed in Graph 6, below. Sourcing and environmental characteristics of products made a positive contribution In contrast to our findings for the social value chain, it seems that an increased environmental cooperation with suppliers has not penalised the financial performance of companies, but rather exerted a positive effect on performance over the observation period. The same holds true for the products and services of a company. The factor encompassing the environmental design and compatibility of the products and services was essentially flat over the investigated period and but eventually finished almost 5 percentage points above the benchmark. The Products & Services factor also displayed a lower volatility than Sourcing & Suppliers. SOURCING, PRODUCTION PROCESSES, PRODUCTS & SERVICES 115 Products & Services, sustainably enhanced Products & Services, equally weighted Sourcing/Suppliers, sustainably enhanced Sourcing/Suppliers, equally weighted Production Processes, sustainably enhanced Production Processes, equally weighted 110 105 100 95 90 85 12.98 06.99 12.99 06.00 12.00 06.01 12.01 06.02 12.02 06.03 Graph 6. Factor returns on level IV. The different production steps forming the environmental life cycle: suppliers, (inhouse) production processes and products & services. The graph displays the performance contribution of these factors for two different weighting scenarios. The factor “inhouse production processes” has penalised performance It is also interesting to note that both the Sourcing & Suppliers and the Products & Services factors have witnessed a substantial recovery in the current year and have outperformed the benchmark by 3.9% and up to 4.7%, respectively at the end of the observation period. The quite negative performance contribution of the factor (inhouse) Production Processes has continued its downward trend, though. The quite negative contribution of inhouse production processes is nevertheless remarkable and – once again – goes against commonly held convictions. After all, it is generally believed by the sustainable community that environmentally advanced production processes or best practice enhance enterprise value. Sustainability-related research and analysis is still predominantly focused on a company’s own production processes, whereas our results suggest that it is much more beneficial (at least financially) to manage environmental impacts well at the suppliers’ level and again in product development. Be that as it may, inhouse production remains the area where a company certainly has the most control over its environmental impacts. One might thus conjecture that the emphasis put upon Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 17 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . the production processes in contemporary research seems to be motivated also by generally better availability of relevant data in this area, whereas reliable data on suppliers and product development is still more difficult to get. 18 Weighting schemes applied again of little effect As we have already observed for the level III scores of the environmental value chain, the differences between the equally weighted scenario and the sustainably enhanced scenario are hardly noteworthy, maybe with the exception of the inhouse production processes. For the latter factor, it seems that the sustainably weighted scenario has beaten the unweighted scenario consistently over the whole period. Maybe it is fair to say that the ability to create a difference by weighting is also dependent on the number of basic indicators which are used to compute a factor. In the hypothetical case where we had just one indicator, all the weight will automatically rest on that indicator. And in fact, while we have two basic indicators for environmental sourcing & suppliers only, and five for products & services, there are already ten indicators used to build the inhouse production processes factor. Therefore, it seems plausible that the difference between the equally weighted and the sustainably weighted scenario is also more significant. However, we would like to point out that the mere number of indicators is not necessarily a good proxy for the sustainable relevance of a particular area. That is why there is no use at all in artificially augmenting the number of indicators by including irrelevant ones. Are there still other explanations - apart from this technical reason just mentioned – that may explain why the application of a judicious weighting scheme has not effectively added value over the observation period? There probably are: A closer look at the basic ratings used to calculate the individual life cycle factors described, revealed that, within a specific factor, environmentally advanced companies seem to be either good everywhere or generally poor throughout. We have no way to tell whether this is so in reality or whether we are witnessing here a certain research-induced bias. All we can say is that the primary data seems closely correlated in this respect. Therefore, all other things being equal, the (financial) outcome is to a large extent indifferent of the weighting scheme applied. 4. Conclusion/Summary By systematically decomposing the «sustainability» of companies into its constituents and backtracking their influence on stock price performance, it is indeed possible to establish where financial value has been created and where it was lost. In almost all the cases, the careful weighting of indicators and sub-elements according to the actual relevance of their underlying sustainable processes generates considerably higher alphas than an indiscriminate aggregation of the sustainability-related data on an equally weighted basis. The contribution of sustainable factors to financial performance can be further enhanced by judiciously tilting the aggregation weights according to the findings of a detailed factor decomposition. However, following the precautionary principle, it does not seem wise to deviate too much from a “sustainably fundamental” industry-specific weighting scheme, which has to be determined purely on the basis of sustainable process know-how. The financially enhanced sustainability scenario is the only investment strategy that has not penalised performance over the observation period but rather generated a slight value-added over the benchmark. However, based on our results, it is not possible to infer any statistically significant outperformance. The latter finding is in line with the most recent empirical studies (Ziegler et al. 2002), but seems to contradict the majority of other studies that claim to have found such a connection. Only the social compatibility of companies has been rewarded financially over the entire observation period of 41/2 years, whereas the environmental performance had a slightly negative effect on the stock price performance of the investigated companies. These findings also contradict several SRI performance studies which have been conducted over the last years (Margolis/Walsh, 2001). A further interesting result is the fact that more formal and procedural criteria such as environmental or social policies and the pertinent reporting frameworks not only seem to have had no positive effect on the financial performance of companies, but have clearly penalised performance over the observation period. Factors more closely related to the actual sustainable performance “in the field” (both along the environmental and the social value chain) consistently showed a more positive contribution toward the stock price performance than formal criteria. To put it more clearly, one could say that the only thing that seems to matter is what a company does, not what it says. These findings might also encourage current sustainability research - which in general still focuses predominantly on more formal and qualitative criteria - to gradually embrace a more comprehensive set of quantitative performance indicators. Finally, our findings confirm the view that (only) by using an enhanced sustainability model it is indeed possible to invest according to the principles of sustainable development without compromising the financial performance of the investment. The study also presents further evidence that the application of quantitative techniques holds the key for realising the full potential of sustainable investment. Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 19 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 20 Annex: List of companies included in the study N° 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 NAME 3I GROUP ABB ABBEY NATIONAL ABN AMRO HOLDING ACCOR ADECCO NOM. AEGON AFFICHAGE HOLDING AGF -ASSURANCES GLES DE FRANCEAHOLD KONINKLIJKE AKZO NOBEL ALCATEL ALLEANZA ASSICURAZIONI ALLIANCE & LEICESTER ALLIANZ NAM. ALLIED DOMECQ ALLIED IRISH BANKS ALMANIJ PART SOC. ALTADIS ALTANA AMB GENERALI HOLDING INHA. AMERSHAM AMVESCAP ARM HOLDINGS ASCOM HOLDING NOM. VN.10 ASML HOLDING ASSICURAZIONI GENERALI ASSOCIATED BRITISH FOODS ASTRAZENECA ATLAS COPCO 'A' AVENTIS AVIVA AXA BAA BACHEM 'B' BAE SYSTEMS BALOISE-HOLDING NOM. BANCA FIDEURAM BANCA INTESA BANCA NAZIONALE DEL LAVORO BANCO COMERCIAL PORTUGUES REG. BANCO POPULAR ESPANOL BANK OF IRELAND BANQUE CANTONALE VAUDOISE NOM. BARCLAYS (NEW) BARRY CALLEBAUT BASF BAYER INDUS DIVFIN CAPGDS BANKS BANKS LEISUR COMMSE INSURE MEDIA INSURE FOODDR MATRLS TECHHW INSURE BANKS INSURE FOODBE BANKS DIVFIN FOODBE PHARMB INSURE HEALTH DIVFIN TECHHW TECHHW TECHHW INSURE FOODBE PHARMB CAPGDS PHARMB INSURE INSURE TRANSP PHARMB CAPGDS INSURE DIVFIN BANKS BANKS BANKS BANKS BANKS BANKS BANKS FOODBE MATRLS MATRLS CTRY UKI SWI UKI NET FRA SWI NET SWI FRA NET NET FRA ITA UKI GER UKI IRE BEL SPA GER GER UKI UKI UKI SWI NET ITA UKI UKI SWE FRA UKI FRA UKI SWI UKI SWI ITA ITA ITA POR SPA IRE SWI UKI SWI GER GER N° 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 NAME BAYERISCHE HYPO.& VEREINSBANK BBVA B.BILBAO VIZCAYA ARGENT.NOM. BEIERSDORF BELIMO HOLDING BG GROUP BHP BILLITON PLC BMW BAYERISCHE MOTORENWERKE BNP PARIBAS BOBST GROUP BOC GROUP BON APPETIT GROUP BOOTS GROUP BOUYGUES BP BRITISH AIRWAYS BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO BRITISH SKY BROADCASTING GROUP BSCH BANCO SANTANDER CENTRAL NOM. BT GROUP BUCHER INDUSTRIES CABLE & WIRELESS CADBURY SCHWEPPES CAP GEMINI CAPITA GROUP CAPITALIA CARREFOUR SUPERMARCHE CASINO GUICHARD PERRACHON CENTERPULSE CENTRICA CHRISTIAN DIOR CIBA SPECIALITES CHIMIQUES HOLD. CIE FIN.RICHEMONT UNIT 'A' CLARIANT COMMERZBANK CREDIT SUISSE GROUP CRH DAETWYLER HOLDING DAILY MAIL & GENERAL TRUST 'A' DAIMLERCHRYSLER DAMPSKIBSSELSKABET AF 1912 'B' DANSKE BANK DEGUSSA DEUTSCHE BANK NAM. DEUTSCHE LUFTHANSA -VINKULIERTDEUTSCHE TELEKOM NAM. DEXIA DIAGEO DISETRONIC HOLDING NOM. -SDV- INDUS BANKS BANKS HOUSEP CAPGDS ENERGY MATRLS AUTO BANKS CAPGDS MATRLS FOODDR FOODDR TELECO ENERGY TRANSP FOODBE MEDIA BANKS TELECO CAPGDS TELECO FOODBE SOFTSE COMMSE BANKS FOODDR FOODDR HEALTH UTILIT CONSDU MATRLS CONSDU MATRLS BANKS BANKS MATRLS CAPGDS MEDIA AUTO TRANSP BANKS MATRLS BANKS TRANSP TELECO BANKS FOODBE HEALTH CTRY GER SPA GER SWI UKI UKI GER FRA SWI UKI SWI UKI FRA UKI UKI UKI UKI SPA UKI SWI UKI UKI FRA UKI ITA FRA FRA SWI UKI FRA SWI SWI SWI GER SWI IRE SWI UKI GER DEN DEN GER GER GER GER BEL UKI SWI Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . Annex: List of companies included in the study N° 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 NAME DISTEFORA HOLDING NOM. DIXONS GROUP E.ON EDP-ELECTRICIDADE PORTUGAL -NEWELAN CORP ELECTRABEL PART SOC. ELECTROCOMPONENTS ELECTROLUX 'B' EMI GROUP EMS-CHEMIE HOLDING PORT. ENDESA ENI EQUANT ERICSSON TELEFON 'B' FIAT FINECOGROUP FOERENINGSSPARBANKEN 'A' FORBO HOLDING FORTIS FRANCE TELECOM FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE GAS NATURAL SDG GEORGES FISCHER NOM. GKN GLAXOSMITHKLINE GRANADA PLC GROUPE BRUXELLES LAMBERT GBL GROUPE DANONE GURIT-HEBERLEIN CHF 100 GUS HANSON HAYS HBOS HEINEKEN HENKEL VORZ. HENNES & MAURITZ 'B' HERO, LENZBURG HILTI B.PART. HILTON GROUP HOLCIM PORT. HSBC HOLDINGS (USD 0,50) IBERDROLA IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES IMPERIAL TOBACCO GROUP ING GROEP C.ACT. INVENSYS JELMOLI HOLDING PORT. JULIUS BAER HOLDING PORT. INDUS SOFTSE RETAIL UTILIT UTILIT PHARMB UTILIT CAPGDS CONSDU MEDIA MATRLS UTILIT ENERGY TELECO TECHHW AUTO DIVFIN BANKS CONSDU DIVFIN TELECO HEALTH UTILIT CAPGDS AUTO PHARMB MEDIA DIVFIN FOODBE MATRLS RETAIL MATRLS COMMSE BANKS FOODBE HOUSEP RETAIL FOODBE CAPGDS LEISUR MATRLS BANKS UTILIT MATRLS FOODBE DIVFIN CAPGDS RETAIL BANKS CTRY SWI UKI GER POR IRE BEL UKI SWE UKI SWI SPA ITA FRA SWE ITA ITA SWE SWI BEL FRA GER SPA SWI UKI UKI UKI BEL FRA SWI UKI UKI UKI UKI NET GER SWE SWI SWI UKI SWI UKI SPA UKI UKI NET UKI SWI SWI N° 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 NAME KARSTADT QUELLE KBC BANCASSURANCE HOLD. PART SOC. KINGFISHER KPN KONINKLIJKE KUDELSKI KUONI REISEN HOLDING NOM. 'B' L'AIR LIQUIDE L'OREAL LAFARGE SA LAGARDERE SCA NOM. LAND SECURITIES GROUP LEGAL & GENERAL GROUP LINDE LINDT & SPRUENGLI B.PART. (NEW) LLOYDS TSB GROUP LOGICACMG LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL LVMH MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON MARKS & SPENCER GROUP MEDIASET MEDIOBANCA MEDIOLANUM METRO MICHELIN 'B' NOM. MIKRON HOLDING NOM. MLP MOEVENPICK-HOLDING PORT. MUENCHENER RUECKVER. NAM. NATIONAL GRID TRANSCO NESTLE NOKIA NORDEA NORSK HYDRO REG. NOVARTIS NOM. NOVO-NORDISK 'B' NUMICO KONINKLIJKE OLIVETTI PEARSON PEUGEOT PORT. PHOENIX MECANO PHONAK HOLDING NOM. PINAULT PRINTEMPS REDOUTE PIRELLI SPA PORTUGAL TELECOM PRUDENTIAL PLC PUBLIGROUPE NOM. RAS RIUNIONE ADRIATICA DI SICURTA RECKITT BENCKISER PLC INDUS RETAIL BANKS RETAIL TELECO TECHHW LEISUR MATRLS HOUSEP MATRLS MEDIA REALES INSURE CAPGDS FOODBE BANKS SOFTSE TECHHW CONSDU RETAIL MEDIA BANKS DIVFIN RETAIL AUTO CAPGDS DIVFIN LEISUR INSURE UTILIT FOODBE TECHHW BANKS ENERGY PHARMB PHARMB FOODBE TELECO MEDIA AUTO TECHHW HEALTH RETAIL CAPGDS TELECO INSURE MEDIA INSURE HOUSEP CTRY GER BEL UKI NET SWI SWI FRA FRA FRA FRA UKI UKI GER SWI UKI UKI SWI FRA UKI ITA ITA ITA GER FRA SWI GER SWI GER UKI SWI FIN SWE NOR SWI DEN NET ITA UKI FRA SWI SWI FRA ITA POR UKI SWI ITA UKI 21 Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . 22 Annex: List of companies included in the study N° 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 NAME REED ELSEVIER PLC RENAULT -REGIE NATIONALERENTOKIL INITIAL REPSOL YPF REUTERS GROUP RIETER HOLDING RIO TINTO ROCHE HOLDING B.JCE ROLLS-ROYCE ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE INSURANCE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP ROYAL DUTCH PETROLEUM ROYAL PHILIPS ELECTRONICS RWE 'A' (NEU) S.G.S. NOM. SAGE GROUP PLC SAINSBURY J. SAINT-GOBAIN SAMPO OYJ 'A' SANDVIK SANOFI SYNTHELABO SANPAOLO-IMI SAP SYSTEME ANWENDUNGEN PRODUKTE SAURER NOM. SCANIA 'A' SCHAFFNER HOLDING SCHERING SCHINDLER HOLDING B.PART. SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SCHRODERS SCOTTISH & NEWCASTLE SCOTTISH & SOUTHERN ENERGY SCOTTISH POWER SEAT PAGINE GIALLE SECURITAS 'B' SERONO 'B' SEZ HOLDING NOM. SIEMENS NAM. SIG HOLDING NOM. SIKA PART. SIX CONTINENTS SKANDIA INSURANCE SKANDINAVISKA ENSKILDA 'A' SMITH & NEPHEW SMITHS GROUP SOCIETE GENERALE PARIS SODEXHO ALLIANCE SOLVAY PORT. INDUS MEDIA AUTO COMMSE ENERGY MEDIA CAPGDS MATRLS PHARMB CAPGDS INSURE BANKS ENERGY CONSDU UTILIT COMMSE SOFTSE FOODDR CAPGDS INSURE CAPGDS PHARMB BANKS SOFTSE CAPGDS CAPGDS TECHHW PHARMB CAPGDS CAPGDS DIVFIN FOODBE UTILIT UTILIT MEDIA COMMSE PHARMB TECHHW CAPGDS CAPGDS MATRLS LEISUR INSURE BANKS HEALTH CAPGDS BANKS LEISUR MATRLS CTRY UKI FRA UKI SPA UKI SWI UKI SWI UKI UKI UKI NET NET GER SWI UKI UKI FRA FIN SWE FRA ITA GER SWI SWE SWI GER SWI FRA UKI UKI UKI UKI ITA SWE SWI SWI GER SWI SWI UKI SWE SWE UKI UKI FRA FRA BEL N° 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 NAME STANDARD CHARTERED STMICROELECTRONICS STORA ENSO 'R' (EUR) STRAUMANN HOLDING SUEZ SUISSE REASSURANCES NOM. SULZER NOM. SVENSKA CELLULOSA 'B' SVENSKA HANDELSBANKEN 'A' SWATCH GROUP PORT. SWISSCOM SWISSLOG HOLDING TDC TECAN GROUP NOM. N.1 TELE2 'B' TELECOM ITALIA TELEFONICA TELEVISION FRANCAISE 1 -TF1-PORT. TESCO PLC THALES THYSSENKRUPP TIM -TELECOM ITALIA MOBILETOTAL FINA ELF TPG TUI UBS UCB UNAXIS HOLDING NOM. UNICREDITO ITALIANO UNILABS UNILEVER NV C.ACT. UNION FENOSA UNITED UTILITIES UPM-KYMMENE VALEO VALORA HOLDING VIVENDI UNIVERSAL VNU VODAFONE GROUP VOLKSWAGEN VOLVO 'A' VONTOBEL HOLDING NOM. WOLTERS KLUWER C.ACT. WPP GROUP ZEHNDER GROUP PORT. ZELLWEGER LUWA PORT. ZSCHOKKE HOLDING NOM. ZURICH FINANCIAL SERVICES NOM. INDUS BANKS TECHHW MATRLS HEALTH UTILIT INSURE CAPGDS MATRLS BANKS CONSDU TELECO CAPGDS TELECO HEALTH TELECO TELECO TELECO MEDIA FOODDR CAPGDS MATRLS TELECO ENERGY TRANSP LEISUR BANKS PHARMB TECHHW BANKS HEALTH FOODBE UTILIT UTILIT MATRLS AUTO RETAIL MEDIA MEDIA TELECO AUTO CAPGDS DIVFIN MEDIA MEDIA CAPGDS CAPGDS CAPGDS INSURE CTRY UKI FRA FIN SWI FRA SWI SWI SWE SWE SWI SWI SWI DEN SWI SWE ITA SPA FRA UKI FRA GER ITA FRA NET GER SWI BEL SWI ITA SWI NET SPA UKI FIN FRA SWI FRA NET UKI GER SWE SWI NET UKI SWI SWI SWI SWI Pictet Pictet SRI Performance . PICTET QUANTS Gérard Huber Head Pictet Quants Olivier Ginguene Deputy Head Pictet Quants Christoph Butz Sustainable Concepts & Analysis Stéphane Cornet Portfolio Management International Indexation Dac Khai Lai Computer Programming Rafael Matamoros Portfolio Management Sustainable Products & Indexation Kalina Moore Assistant Portfolio Manager Laurent Nguyen Portfolio Management Sustainable Products Emmanuel Perrenoud Assistant, Management Support Philippe Pol Portfolio Management Structured Products Roland Riat Portfolio Management Swiss Indexation Arpad Ujvari Portfolio Management International Indexation CONTACT ADDRESS: Pictet & Cie Bd Georges-Favon 29 CH-1204 Genève +41 (0)58 323 2323 +41 (0)58 323 2324 www.pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2459 ghuber@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2464 oginguene@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 1853 cbutz@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2488 scornet@pictet.com Phone+41 (0)58 323 2447 dlai@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 1614 rmatamoros@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 1039 kmoore@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 1038 lnguyen@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 1852 eperrenoud@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2147 ppol@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2368 rriat@pictet.com Phone +41 (0)58 323 2745 aujvari@pictet.com 23