Daniel Sailer
Head of Sustainable Investment Office – Metzler Asset Management GmbH
What is sustainable finance for you?
Daniel Sailer: For me, sustainable finance means steering capital flows in the direction of sustainable finance. I am driven by the conviction that finance is part of the solution to our greatest environmental and social challenges. Ultimately, finance, companies, investors or governments can only be successful if they think and act in the long term and thus sustainably.
2. What do you see as the key to the successful further development of the sustainable finance movement?
Sailer: I would like to see clear and globally uniform legal frameworks for sustainable business. The European Emissions Trading Scheme introduced in the EU helps to measure environmental costs. However, further efforts must follow to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. For example an important question is, how can biodiversity performance be measured and be incorporated into a trading system in the future?
3. What role does Metzler Asset Management GmbH play here?
Sailer: The issue of sustainability has played a central role in Metzler Asset Management for over 20 years. In addition to purely financial criteria, we take into account in the investment process how companies handle environmental, social and corporate governance aspects.
For investment success, economic preferences and expectations must be seamlessly integrated into an overall concept in addition to sustainability issues.
In 2021, as a leading provider of responsible investments, we joined the ‘Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative’ to support the global goal of carbon neutrality.
“I am driven by the conviction that finance is part of the solution to our greatest environmental and social challenges.”
4. What is your personal goal?
Sandner: I came into contact with Sustainable Finance more than 10 years ago through servicing Scandinavian investors. At that time, I was sceptical. The topic was not part of my business studies and was hardly known in Germany at that time. Since then, the topic of sustainability has changed dramatically and is now a central issue in finance and the real economy.
As a father of 2 children, their future is close to my heart. In my role as head of the Sustainable Investment Office I can make a small contribution by directing capital into sustainable and thus future-proof investments.