Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally-friendly activities?

At Azalea, we believe that active management of ESG issues as part of our investment process and in our operations helps to create a lasting positive impact for all our stakeholders. Our ESG commitment is encapsulated through four key practices and facets of our business: the investment process, our corporate governance, our responsible culture, and our alignment with international standards.

With respect to ESG-focused or -impact funds for our sustainable fund mandate, we perform our typical investment due diligence alongside a more intensive ESG assessment, which is a scoring framework developed by our team in-house. My ESG team also conducts regular internal teach-ins on issues surrounding ESG, regulatory landscape, ESG investment trends and opportunities (e.g., energy transition, natural capital), and how ESG risks could impact investment performance.

We recognise that strong corporate governance aligns the interests of management and our stakeholders. Our commitment to operate with integrity, public-mindedness and transparency are central tenets of the firm’s culture and is reflected in Azalea’s investment products. Central to our mandate, Azalea promotes financial inclusiveness through the product we develop for a wider investor group. As an extension to our core mandate, Azalea actively promotes financial literacy amongst our investors (e.g., through regular investor seminars and public forums). We have zero-tolerance for irresponsible, corrupt or unethical business practices.

As a signatory to the PRI, GIIN, and the Singapore Stewardship Principles for Responsible Investors, we joined the EDCI to support their objective in generating useful, performance-based, comparable ESG data in the private markets. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and have been operating as carbon neutral since 2021.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

To drive change successfully in organisations, you need to clearly communicate (to internal and external stakeholders) the need for change in line with the company’s strategic direction. You must anticipate the potential risks arising from the suggested change(s) and develop an array of appropriate actions to respond to the possible outcomes. Once you’ve designed and implemented change, you can report on progress. In-house lawyers can add value by setting the strategic direction of the change, shaping the necessary policies to set them in motion, operationalising such changes and providing strategic advice on disclosures thereafter.

It can be difficult to truly measure a company’s track record and accomplishments in terms of their environmentally-friendly behaviour. What do you think has, until now, been mostly missed when discussing how green a company is?

There have been plenty of discussions around what being environmentally friendly means, whether there is any correlation between financial performance and ESG, and the subject of greenwashing.

I think the following issues are also worth thinking about: the consequences of not being sufficiently green (can businesses afford to ignore ESG?), the validation of green credentials (can we standardise ratings and measurements?), and the action required to reduce carbon footprints and preserve biodiversity and nature at large.