A PhD workshop, led by Professor Paul Smeets, Maastricht University, will be held on Monday, 5th September 2022. Pre-selected PhD students will be invited to present their papers or projects and faculty and senior researchers from GRASFI universities will provide feedback, as well as advice on research, publications, and careers.
To apply for the PhD workshop, you must be an enrolled PhD student at the time of the conference. To apply for a place, you must submit a draft journal article-length paper or a detailed research proposal to grasfi2022@sustainablefinancealliance.org. The deadline for submission is Friday, 27th May, 2021.
The GRASFI 2022 Conference is generously supported by:
Date and Time
Monday, 5 September 2022
14:45 – 16:15 CET
Session
Session Chairs:
Prof. Timo Busch, Hamburg University
Bérénice Lasfargues, BNP Paribas AM
PAPERS
Exploring ITR score: Framing robust company-specific benchmarks and future company-level GHG emissions ranges
Authors: Ruben Haalebos and Felix Fouret
ESG Rating Revisions and Stock Returns
Authors: Rients Galema and Dirk Gerritsen
Divestment, information asymmetries, and inflated ESG ratings
Authors: Bram van der Kroft and Dennis Bams.
Abstracts
Exploring ITR score: Framing robust company-specific benchmarks and future company-level GHG emissions ranges
As Investors are looking to align their portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement, portfolio metrics like Implied Temperature Rise (ITR) are becoming increasingly popular. We describe a Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures-aligned ITR methodology and benchmark the results.
ESG Rating Revisions and Stock Returns
We study the six-month impact of ESG rating revisions on U.S. stocks. Decreases are followed by annualized negative returns of 3%, which are not driven by ESG-specific news; partly driven by sustainable index changes; and in line with long-term investors decreasing holdings after a rating decrease.
Divestment, information asymmetries, and inflated ESG ratings
We causally show that ESG ratings are inversely related to sustainable performance because firms face cost of capital incentives to inflate ratings given socially responsible investing under information asymmetries. Consequently, their promises of future sustainable performance do not realize, even up to 15 years in the future.