Law360 Features Insights from Asset Management Partners Isabel Dische and Melissa Bender on ESG Investing Amid COVID-19

While the pandemic has created some obstacles for investment strategies that consider environmental, social and governance factors, Law360 reports that it has also cast the business value of these factors into sharp relief and could spur increased adoption of ESG frameworks. 

Remarks from asset management partners Melissa Bender and Isabel Dische are featured in the Sept. 18 article titled “How The Pandemic Could Turbocharge ESG Investing.” 

"We've seen a lot of asset managers see the experience of watching businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and realize the importance of, particularly the 'S' [social] factor of ESG," said Isabel, who co-leads the firm's institutional investors team. Some companies that hadn't focused on ESG factors in the past have started paying attention, said Ropes & Gray LLP asset management partner Isabel Dische. "I think that's a trend we're going to see continue.” 

"Managers have themselves been having to come to terms with how they've been dealing with the pandemic," Bender said. "It's an exercise in some cases in self-reflection, in terms of looking at the asset manager's own business and how strong their own ESG governance is, and then likewise taking that and looking at the portfolio companies too, and having that inform some of the portfolio company discussions," said Melissa.