Stockholm (NordSIP) – It has been only a couple of months since Fredric Nyström joined the Third Swedish National Pension Fund (AP3) as Head of Sustainability. However, his commitments and responsibilities are already growing.
In July, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) announced that Nyström would be joining the organisation’s Asset Management Committee, which oversees the allocation, both strategic and tactical, and the selection of external managers for Mistra’s assets. From 1 July 2022, Nyström is officially part of the committee chaired by Märtha Josefsson. In his new role, he will be collaborating with a body of senior members including Torbjörn Hamnmark, Maritha Lindberg, Anna Jakobsson and Mistra’s CEO Anna Jöborn.
Nyström’s knowledge and experience in evaluating managers’ sustainability performance will undoubtedly come in handy as part of Mistra’s Asset Management Committee. “Many investors are now quicker to pick up demands and take responsibility, but there are also many cases where there is a lot of talk and little action,” comments Nystrom in Mistra’s announcement (in Swedish). “I think I can see through this and evaluate which ones are actually doing the right thing for real and whether their talk and action have real impact. For Mistra, it is important to find investments that have a clear impact on society,” he adds.
The new member of Mistra’s Asset Management Committee is eager to support asset managers’ strife to develop in a sustainable direction. Nyström points out that one way to achieve this goal is by disseminating knowledge and results from Mistra’s research. “Mistra’s research programmes contain a great deal of useful knowledge that asset managers can benefit from. We want to help make the research more accessible to them in various ways,” he comments.
Nyström believes that sustainability efforts will continue moving forward despite some temporary setbacks due to the current geopolitical and macroeconomic turbulence. He seems particularly keen on promoting biodiversity. “You could say that the financial markets have been discussing climate since the 1950s and have taken a long time to set up and work on standards and frameworks. Now they are increasingly embracing and acting on biodiversity research and science, not least by acting as responsible owners,” he says.
