Event Details

LUMS Accounting and Finance Department online event looking at Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) in the financial sector.

Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) Accounting and Finance Department students, alumni and offer holders are invited to a special online event focussed on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) - the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or business.

Join us to hear insights from LUMS Professors Mark Shackleton and Jeffrey Unerman, and from Jessica Cassey, Senior Investment Manager at RPMI Railpen. There will also be the opportunity to share and develop your knowledge and perspective through engagement with our speakers, academic colleagues and other attendees in small breakout groups.

Professor Shackleton will talk about the fear that investing in ESG positive stocks will lead you to underperform. This will centre on the analogy between past investment in tobacco and current investment in oil. The latter industry is going through a hard time, some investors thought it would do well (sin stock) but that has not been the case as its market is disappearing for COVID and climate reasons.

Professor Unerman will critique the drive to use quantified accounting measures in social and environmental accounting, explaining some of the conceptual reasons why qualitative rather than quantitative decision-making tools are more appropriate for many social and environmental sustainability accounting issues.

Jessica Cassey is a Senior Investment Manager at RPMI Railpen, focused on ESG integration across public and private market investments. She started her career in private client investment management and moved to La Francaise to focus on ESG-integrated analysis for European funds. She additionally worked at the Principles for Responsible Investment, leading listed equity projects there.