Guillermo Hermida Lazcano
CaixaBank
ESG Specialist (Caixabank Private Banking)
Guillermo Hermida Lazcano, Investment Strategy and Sustainability Manager at CaixaBank Banca Privada, discusses how they deal with ESG and help their clients to be more responsible.
What is your ESG ambition for wealth management?
We aspire to advise our clients in trying to fulfill their financial goals and sustainability preferences. We want to be an active player that contributes to improving the world from a climatic and social point of view.
ESG investing used to be viewed as potentially detrimental to performance. What is the perception of your high net worth clients now? What's the appetite for ESG funds?
We have made big efforts in explaining to our clients that ESG factors have been integrated in most of the investment processes of the vehicles that we advise on, improving the binomial risk-reward. We explain to them that there are different levels of restrictions that they can implement on ESG requirements and that the more they have, the more the investments would separate from the traditional mandates. Depending on the level of knowledge of the clients about sustainability they are more or less demanding, but in general, up to now, the appetite for ESG funds is poor. However, we are confident that our efforts will increase this appetite.
