ESG Investing at ClearBridge: An Annual Update with Mary Jane McQuillen
As Head of ESG Investment at ClearBridge and a portfolio manager who invests in companies with both fundamental discipline and sustainability leadership, Mary Jane McQuillen is uniquely positioned to offer a close-up view from the firm’s ongoing engagements with CEOs and CFOs of the companies held across ClearBridge portfolios, as well as macro trends and major long-term issues defining the space. We sat down with MJ, as she is known in ESG circles, to discuss what shaped the broader ESG investing discussion in 2020 and what will have an impact on ClearBridge engagements with companies in the coming months. She highlighted several trends to watch, including the resilience of ESG investing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing market interest in ESG integration along the lines of ClearBridge’s model, the utility of global ESG reporting
