Trawling the bottom in Europe
In union is strength
Caledonian collaboration
Most equity fund managers still like to group companies into two broad camps: growth companies, with strong earnings per share momentum; and value companies, those cheap in terms of share price to book value of their assets. But it is becoming increasingly fashionable to analyze companies by another very different standard: the extent to which they are sustainability-driven. Sustainable development, as defined by the UN's Brundtland Commission, is investment that meets "the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Applied to corporations, this means that sustainability companies are those that take account of social and environmental factors as well as purely financial considerations in managing their businesses.
It may sound earnestly politically correct, or even indicative of a toppy and complacent equity market in which investors feel they can...
