A very successful and interesting event, with representatives from several local and global financial institutions.  In addition to the formal presentations by ASrIA, there were a number of short addresses.   The following is a brief summary of the presentations and discussion.

The Vice President  Financial Division of Mingtai Insurance warmly welcomed all the participants to the event, and stressed that Mingtai aimed to be a leader of CSR in Taiwan and practiced the integration of environmental, social and governance factors across all its operations and products.

Niven Huang, Secretary General BCSD Taiwan provided an introduction to the event and to BCSD-Taiwan, stressing the leading role that BCSD had undertaken in Taiwan to encourage the adoption of SRI by the local financial community.  He mentioned several events BCSD-Taiwan had run, often in partnership with ASrIA, over the last few years.

Wai-Shin Chan, Development Director ASrIA, provided an overview of SRI in the region and stressed the importance of adopting a policy of ESG integration across all investment products and services, rather than keeping a focus solely on SRI specific funds.

David St. Maur Sheil, Director ASrIA, provided suggestions on how sustainable investment could be developed in Taiwan.  He stressed the importance of forming a collaborative network in order to share and maximise resources and facilitate capacity building around sustainable investment.

The President & CEO of Fubon Financial introduced the Fubon CSR Fund.   He noted in particular the importance of encouraging more direct SRI investment in Taiwanese companies and the challenge of identifying local companies to invest in due to the lack of local indexes and other research resources.

The Chief Investment Officer of KBC Concord Asset Management Co and the Business Development Director of Aviva Investors, briefly introduced their funds.  These funds are European based, global SRI funds, and a key challenge was marketing them and raising awareness and support for SRI among local investors.

The Senior Executive, Vice President and Spokesman of the Taiwan Stock Exchange outlined initiatives by the Taiwan Stock Exchange to encourage improved voluntary disclosure by Taiwanese companies.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Taiwan Corporate Governance Association encouraged participants to use corporate governance data provided on Taiwanese companies by her association.

There was an active discussion which concluded that much of the resources needed to stimulate SRI in Taiwan were in place, but needed to be integrated, and that this could be best achieved via co-operation and networking among all the relevant parties.