The Long Term Infrastructure Investors Association (LTIIA) is partnering with a software provider to help investors improve their monitoring and reporting of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
The association has joined forces with eFront, a provider of software for alternative asset classes, to develop what it has described as a library to “help asset managers and institutional investors collect and manage information on ESG performance of their assets for reporting”.
The plan is for an initial 300 indicators to be released this year on eFront’s ESG platform, according to the statement.
The so-called indicators can be yes/no questions, such as “do you have a policy on bribery and corruption”, or numeric, such as on an asset level about total carbon dioxide emissions in a given quarter, or total lost time due to accidents.
Eugene Zhuchenko, executive director at LTIAA, told IPE Real Estate that the library builds on an ESG handbook that the association produced last year.
“That provided a general overview and summary of indicators that institutional investors and fund managers use, and this tool with eFront takes that work one step further, enabling users to improve their practices,” he said.
“It can be used for internal reporting, to inform investors, or collect information about investee companies.”
The LTIIA was founded in 2014 by investors and investment manager Meridiem to promote long-term investment in infrastructure, with Zhuchenko joining from Dutch pensions group APG last year.
It has been working with EDHEC-Risk Institute to create a benchmark for infrastructure investment, and is funding an EDHEC research chair position to focus on the role of non-financial metrics for the index.
