BNP Paribas Investment Partners is joining forces with Erik Orsenna to form the Sustainable Development Circle, an initiative that fits perfectly with BNP Paribas Investment Partners' commitment to responsible and sustainable investing.
The Sustainable Development Circle will bring together institutional investors, retail investors and asset management professionals to create a forum for sharing ideas and for reflection and debate on the major challenges facing the planet in the future and the implications of these for long-term investors.
Erik Orsenna will assist BNP Paribas' teams on sustainability and SRI (Sustainable and Responsible Investment), in particular by furthering analysis of the need to channel a larger proportion of investments towards a more responsible and sustainable economy. Erik Orsenna will also hold a series of conferences, the first of which addresses water-related issues. This will be followed by several other meetings, with the next one due to be held in autumn 2010, on "Sustainable Development and Sovereign Risk".
BNPP IP has shown its commitment to SRI over the past ten years, and this is one of the company's main growth axes. BNPP IP has been a leading player in this area in Europe since the creation of its dedicated research teams and the launch of its first SRI fund in 2002. It now has over EUR 12 billion in assets under management or advisory mandates.
Philippe Marchessaux, CEO of BNP Paribas Investment Partners, commented on the creation of the Sustainable Development Circle, saying: "I am particularly proud of this new initiative, which demonstrates our commitment to SRI. Our partnership with Erik Orsenna, a French writer, Goncourt literature prize winner and member of the Académie française(1), and an economist who has researched sustainable development for the past ten years, will help us explore new areas and ideas, and take us to a new stage in our approach to responsible and sustainable investing".
(1)The French Academy, the official authority on the French language.
About BNP Paribas Investment Partners
BNP Paribas Investment Partners is the dedicated asset management business line of the BNP Paribas Group. BNP Paribas Investment Partners offers a full range of investment management services to institutional and retail clients around the world. Central to the way we work is the concept of partnership – both in terms of how we behave as a family of companies and our relationships with our clients. Around 1,200 investment professionals work across our network of some 60 investment centres, each of which is a specialist in a particular asset class or type of product. With total assets under management of EUR 542 billion as at 31 March 2010, BNP Paribas Investment Partners is the third-largest asset manager in Europe and the ninth-largest in the world.
On 1 April 2010, the operations of Fortis Investments were merged with those of BNP Paribas Investment Partners. Fortis Investments' investment experts and international locations were a natural and complementary fit with BNP Paribas Investments Partners, whose flexible partnership model has proven successful in integrating new expertise in the past. Together, our combined company provides clients with an even broader range of investment solutions and even better client service than before.