Why Mirova

Mirova certified asset manager, dedicated entirely to sustainable investing. It aims to combine financial performance with environmental and social impact, offering a wide range of investment solutions across asset classes. By positioning the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability issues at the centre of its strategy and products, Mirova has been among the pioneers of a different way of investing. Indeed, the firm was named among the ‘Best for the World™ B Corps of 2021’, which recognises those whose scores in one or more of the five impact areas assessed towards the certification reach the top 5% of all B Corps worldwide1. Mirova is an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers.

At a glance

AUM

€27.2 billion*

of assets under
management

SFDR

100%

of funds covered
by SFDR,
classified Article 9

12 specialists

12

ESG-dedicated
in-house analysts
specialised by
macro areas

7 centres

7

centres of
expertise

temperature

2°C

as the targeted
global warming
scenario for all
portfolios



4 reasons to invest

The rise of the green bond market has emerged as a potentially crucial part of addressing the threat of climate change to our economic wellbeing. Having invested since 2012, Mirova was one of the first asset managers to invest in green and sustainable bonds. This has enabled the firm to introduce a unique and integrated investment process. Assets under management in the Mirova Global Green Bond strategy amount to €852 million2 and it has invested €3.4 billion3 on the green and sustainable bond market through its various strategies.
With questions raised about how ‘greenness’ is actually verified – for instance, not every green bond issuer commits to providing annual impact reporting with quantitative impact metrics – Mirova has developed a methodology for analysing and assessing green bond programmes that draws from the Green Bond Principles framework. This entails a high degree of selectivity: 60% of bonds that qualify as ‘green’ globally, don’t meet their requirements4. Yet Mirova goes further: it analyses and – in some cases – challenges the technical criteria established by the European green taxonomy, as well as those suggested by issuers themselves.
While the capital raised from any green bond must fund green and/or social projects, Mirova stipulates that the environmental and/or social impacts of the project must also be sufficiently clear and ambitious to ensure significant progress can be made towards reaching the stated objective. Close attention is given to the level of detail and transparency of the impact reporting provided for each project, which goes some way to quell investor fears of ‘greenwashing’ – the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally friendly.
Mirova has developed an internal tool to estimate the ‘greenium’ – that is, the ‘green premium’, or the difference between the yield of a green bond and the yield of a conventional bond from a similar issuer with similar characteristics. Some have observed that the increase in dedicated green bond mandates means a growing number of investors have become forced buyers of a concentrated number of deals, pushing the prices up regardless of the financial characteristics of the offering. But others argue that a ‘greenium’ is justified in some cases because the green label can be a proxy for good management, increased disclosure, and a robust long-term strategy at an issuer.

The Team

Marc Briand

Head of Fixed Income
Mirova

Charles Portier

Portfolio Manager
Mirova

Bertrand Rocher

Portfolio Manager and Head of Credit Research
Mirova

Agathe Foussard

Portfolio Manager
Mirova

Contact

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