Allianz has awarded its inaugural Impact Research Award to a paper on the effect of screentime on young people.
The firm’s global investment arm, AllianzGI, launched the prize to recognise academic studies that help it understand the environmental and social impact of the companies in its private markets portfolio.
Its debut winner is Taren Sanders, an associate professor at the Australian Catholic University’s Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, who conducted a review of the educational and health implications of young people interacting with electronic screens.
Allianz claimed in its latest annual sustainability and stewardship report, published today, that it had more than €200bn allocated to sustainability- and impact-focused strategies in 2024.
It has developed an in-house framework to help it assess the potential environmental and social impacts of its private markets investments, but said it needs more third-party research to help build its “evidence base”.
“By establishing this annual award, we hope to encourage more research in areas of focus for impact investing,” said AllianzGI’s global head of sustainable and impact investing, Matt Christensen.
“The aim is to continuously improve our investment selection process and thereby help to increase the positive impact of our work alongside the generation of financial returns,” he added.
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) has also thrown its weight behind academic research into sustainability in recent years, bankrolling studies and events in key areas.
This week, NBIM’s lead policy advisor and former head of stewardship, Snorre Gjerde, shared a new academic paper he co-authored with researchers at the University of Zurich.
The study is based on a survey of companies in NBIM’s portfolio, and aims to shed light on how they approach nature-based topics.
It concluded that more than 70% of respondents on the receiving end of shareholder engagement about nature found it “value-generating”.
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