Stockholm (NordSIP) – Major career moves are a good inflection point at which to take a step back and reflect on the state of play in your industry. With that in mind NordSIP seized the opportunity to catch up with Anna-Stina Wiklund, who after two decades of investment and sustainability experience with institutions in Sweden and Finland is branching out on her own and heading to somewhat sunnier climes.
Wiklund was most recently Head of Responsible Investing and Portfolio Manager at the Finnish Church Pension Fund, where she handled sustainability-related engagement and reporting across all asset classes as well as the fund’s involvement in collaborative initiatives such as the PRI, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), CDP, and Finsif. Wiklund’s portfolio management responsibilities focused on forestry, infrastructure, and impact investments. She combined her role at the Church of Finland with a seat on the investment committee of the University of Eastern Finland. Before joining the Church Pension Fund Wiklund performed various Product Specialist, Portfolio Management, and Sustainability roles over a 17-year period for the Ålandsbanken group in Sweden and Finland.
Thumbs up for sustainability reporting regulations
While some investors may baulk at the prospect of ever-increasing sustainability reporting requirements, Wiklund prefers to look on the bright side: “The sustainable finance legislation from the EU including the SFDR, the taxonomy, and now the CSRD has been a positive thing. If we look back at the time before all these disclosure requirements were in place, only the most ambitious institutions communicated anything regarding how they implement sustainability in their investment activities. Even though the legislation structure is not entirely perfect, it is a start and now we have comparable data across all EU countries.”
Despite the improved transparency brought on by the disclosure regulations, investing sustainably remains a challenging pursuit. As Head of Responsible Investing for a faith-based institution like the Finnish Church, any investments in the weapons industry were clearly out of bounds, explains Wiklund, but the issue of including the defence sector or conflict regions in ESG portfolios remains highly pertinent for Finnish investors: “In the last year the matter of how conflicts are approached has become a key question for investors to tackle, “ says Wiklund, “It has mainly been driven by the rising Israel-Palestine conflict, but other areas have also been in focus. At the Church Pension Fund, we surveyed all emerging markets fund managers back in April regarding their approach to investments in conflict-areas.” Based on her experience, Wiklund recommends the Geneva Academy’s Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts (RULAC) online tool as a useful starting point for navigating this problematic area of investment.
Nature climbs up the agenda
When it comes to the evolution of sustainable investing in Finland, Wiklund has observed that the longstanding focus on climate change has more recently been supplemented by a much closer attention to biodiversity and other nature-related issues. She was involved as the Finnish Church Pension Fund joined other Nature Action 100 signatories earlier this year in challenging local forestry company Stora Enso over serious damage caused by its machinery to the habitat of endangered freshwater pearls in the Hukkajoki river. Wiklund believes Finnish institutions are swiftly getting up to speed on nature-related investing, with a series of workshops on the integration of biodiversity factors into the investment process and reporting having been organised by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra.
Wiklund is now looking forward to putting her two decades of experience to good use in a new independent advisory role. Her newly formed company Flora Advisory Ltd will focus on helping clients navigate the increasingly complex world of sustainable investing, with a particular focus on legislation and regulatory reporting requirements: “From my experience with different investment managers and institutional investors, I know it is hard to keep up to date with the regulatory changes. This is especially challenging when internal resources are limited. I think the Fondbolagens Förening does a good job in Sweden of supporting financial market participants in that respect. However, there is no equivalent institution in Finland, so every organisation must figure out by themselves how a certain regulation applies to them.”
Wiklund will mainly be offering her advisory services remotely, having also taken on the role of joint-owner and co-manager of a small hotel in Southern Spain. Finally, as a keen triathlete Wiklund is looking forward to the ideal local training conditions ahead of her next endurance event.
