Retirement Planning Intelligence

ESG investing and retirement

Building a better future while achieving your retirement goals

Environmental, social and governance ("ESG") investing is gaining popularity as one type of investment strategy.

Today, ESG factors are not only integrated into Hong Kong’s retail investment funds, but also retirement funds.

How much do you know about ESG investing? What does it mean for Mandatory Provident Fund ("MPF") scheme members? Let’s find out.

What is ESG investing?

ESG investing is the incorporation of environmental, social and governance factors into the selection and management of investments in order to understand the true value of an investment, mitigating risk, and identifying new opportunities.

What does ESG stand for? The factors that may be relevant to investors

Let’s take a closer look at the three factors that make up ESG:

Environmental

From stronger typhoons to rising rainfall and higher air-conditioning costs amid hot temperatures, climate change affects people’s lives as well as businesses. Factors like water contamination and air pollution demonstrate how a company’s operations can impact the natural environment and vice versa – for instance, water scarcity affecting a food and beverage company.

Social

With an aging population and more women joining the workforce, how can companies support social issues such as better healthcare and retirement solutions, as well as protecting employee welfare and promoting gender equality? Social factors have to do with the relationship between a company and its employees, consumers, suppliers, and communities – all relevant to building stronger customer loyalty and business reputation.

Governance

Whether it’s a family business or a large conglomerate, governance factors relate to the structures or systems put in place to ensure company management is effective. Issues most relevant to investors include the makeup and oversight of the board of directors, executive compensation, capital management, dividend pay-outs, and mergers and acquisitions.

The benefits of ESG investing

ESG-focused companies tend to perform better in terms of operational efficiency, cost savings, reducing employee turnover, innovation, retaining talents, reducing compliance costs and risk management — all of which should potentially help increase shareholder value¹.

What’s more, ESG investing may deliver outperformance over the longer term. Looking at the 5-year and 10-year market performances (as of October 2023), the three global ESG indices have also outperformed the parent indices.

Performance of global ESG indices versus parent indices

Indices	Annualised gross returns
Indices	5 years	10 years
ESG index: MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) ESG Universal	8.62%	7.72%
Parent index: MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI)	8.00%	7.36%

Indices	Annualised gross returns
Indices	5 years	10 years
ESG index: MSCI World Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index	10.56%	8.93%
Parent index: MSCI World Index	8.82%	8.11%

Indices	Annualised gross returns
Indices	5 years	10 years
ESG index: MSCI World ESG Leaders Index	9.46%	8.14%
Parent index: MSCI World Index	8.82%	8.11%

Source: MSCI, data as of October 31, 2023. Returns in USD. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

Why is ESG important for MPF scheme members?

ESG factors may have a direct and, potentially substantial, financial impact on the accrued benefits of MPF scheme members, particularly over the longer term². Investing in companies with good ESG practices may provide an additional layer of risk management, given their relatively stronger governance practices and better business ethics. Greater portfolio resilience can also mean a potentially higher chance of creating long-term value on your investments. This is crucial as the investment time frame for MPFs can be as long as 40 years.

More articles

What is ESG investing?*

5 benefits of ESG investing*

Sustainable investing: unpacking the corporate governance factor in ESG*

What is greenwashing?*

Manulife’s Impact Agenda

Click videos to learn more:

"The Big MPF Family" Phase 2 – Uncle's Positivity

"The Big MPF Family" Phase 3 – Why does ESG matter to me?

Manulife MPF’s recognition

“The 2023 MPF Awards” by MPF Ratings³

¹ Source: NYU Stern, ESG and Financial Performance: Uncovering the Relationship by Aggregating Evidence from 1,000 Plus Studies. Published between 2015 – 2020

² Source: Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority “Principles for Adopting Sustainable Investing in the Investment and Risk Management Processes of MPF Funds”, November 26, 2021

³ Source: MPF Ratings. For details, please refer to https://mpfratings.com.hk/ratings-and-awards/.

*Source: Manulife Investment Management

*Important to Note

These videos/materials/hyperlinks are to give you up-to-date market trends and information and are not intended to provide any investment advice. The provision of these videos/materials/hyperlinks also does not constitute and should not be regarded as any recommendation, offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any products or services or plans. You should not make any investment decision based on these videos/materials/hyperlinks alone and should seek independent professional advice.

Manulife (International) Limited (“Manulife”) neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of, and under no circumstances will Manulife be liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on, any opinion, advice or statement made in these videos/materials/hyperlinks.

The opinions expressed by the investment managers do not represent Manulife’s views. The opinions are subject to change at any time and without notice.

All intellectual property rights in and to these videos/materials/hyperlinks are owned and reserved by the company of the investment managers. No person may copy, distribute, modify, broadcast, hyperlink or transmit in any way or any part of these videos/materials/hyperlinks for purpose whatsoever without Manulife’s prior written consent.

Please be mindful that when you click on the link and open a new window in your browser, you will be subject to the terms of use and privacy policies of the third party website that you are going to visit.

Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investment involves risks. Please refer to the relevant MPF Scheme Brochure and Key Scheme Information Document (KSID) for details.