Cambridge, Mass., September 17, 2020—Recognizing the critical value of scientific research and risk and policy analysis to its financial management strategy, V-Square Quantitative Management (VSQM) has joined the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change as a program sponsor. A global asset management firm and a sustainability analytics platform, VSQM is headquartered in Chicago.
VSQM’s unique approach to sustainability focuses on financially relevant environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors that it uses to evaluate investment prospects. These include sustainability issues likely to impact financial or operating performance; climate, human capital and technology policies; and corporate governance. Guided by the principle that any negative value squared is the same as its positive value squared, VSQM’s investing strategy seeks to “multiply positive financial impact and sustainability outcomes while addressing negative externalities and unleashing impactful solutions.”
To ground its portfolio management in rigorous, relevant research, VSQM has initiated collaborations with internationally renowned engineering and business-focused academic institutions, including MIT.
"VSQM offers an invigorating perspective and collaboration to our research program,” says MIT Joint Program Director Ronald Prinn, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “Their investment approach is strongly aligned with our research objectives to integrate a long-term view on climate and physical risks combined with explicit tools to evaluate transition risks to a low-carbon economy.”
“VSQM and the MIT Joint Program share a similar vision in their respective fields to be catalysts of change,” says Mamadou-Abou Sarr, VSQM’s president and chief executive officer. “I believe that our new collaboration will help create a two-way bridge between science, global policy and financial markets that will accelerate innovation for VSQM, the Joint Program and society-at-large.”
Through their collaboration, VSQM and the MIT Joint Program plan to exchange scientific and technical information and organize joint activities such as webinars and workshops; survey the efficacy and strategy of Scope 3 (emissions from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting company) and carbon-pricing mechanisms that can help scope and define future research related to ESG metrics; promote academic exchanges, including mutual visits of faculty and staff for research and teaching purposes; and identify opportunities for exchanges, cooperation and joint research and development and publications in the area of climate-related risks.
VSQM joins the MIT Joint Program's international consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors. Starting in 2020 and in alignment with other MIT sponsored research organizations, it is the policy of the Joint Program to issue a news release announcing the addition of each new program sponsor at the start of membership.
Press Inquiries:
MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Horacio Caperan, Executive Director of External Affairs
Email: hcaperan@mit.edu
About the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is working to advance a sustainable, prosperous world through scientific analysis of the complex interactions among co-evolving, interconnected global systems. To help nations, regions, cities and the public and private sectors confront critical challenges in future food, water, energy, climate and other areas, the MIT Joint Program’s integrated team of natural and social scientists produces comprehensive global change projections under different environmental, economic and policy scenarios. These projections help decision-makers to assess impacts, and the associated costs and benefits of potential courses of action. For more information, visit https://globalchange.mit.edu/.
Photo courtesy of VSQM