In an FTF Exchange podcast, Tanya Seajay, CEO of Orenda, a SIX company, explores how ESG is a journey that’s much more than recycling. It represents not only a major change in financial thinking but could bolster the survival of humanity.
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For Tanya Seajay, a former journalist and now CEO and founder of Orenda Software Solutions, a SIX company, the push to have environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) concerns guide investing is not a hippie thing but a survival thing. It’s also more than the honorable act of recycling
Toward that end, Orenda, founded in 2015, applies advanced technology to social media and gathers data that will help financial services firms with their ESG investment decisions. SIX acquired a majority stake in Orenda in February 2021 as a way of expanding its capabilities in ESG and alternative data sets.
“A lot of people think that ESG is sorting your garbage properly. It’s not,” Seajay says. “It’s so much more than that.”
Tanya Seajay
For instance, ESG encompasses “really important environmental issues that are happening around the world,” Seajay adds. “Some people are dealing with drought. Other people are dealing with flooding, and then you have all the social aspects. I mean in the U.S., we definitely saw the outcome with Black Lives Matter — one of the most talked about social issues in 2020. And then also the pandemic … It’s taken off because we’ve reached a crucial point and now there’s been a significant shift in financial thinking … It’s also important that we put our money behind companies moving in the right direction.”
The podcast covers how Orenda, based in Membertou, Nova Scotia, got its start, and how the challenges of ESG data, reporting, compliance, and benchmarks are impacting the operations and investment decisions of financial services firms.
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