Hachigian, Heather

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https://hdl.handle.net/10613/22521

Dr. Heather Hachigian is an assistant professor teaching in the Graduate Certificate in Corporate Social Innovation program. Her research interests include responsible investment, social finance and corporate social innovation. Hachigian’s recent work focuses on the governance of investment institutions with an explicit long-term mandate. Her research has explored investment decision-making under ambiguity, shareholder engagement and integrating sustainability criteria into infrastructure investment deals. Hachigian has published her research in several book chapters and academic journals, including Business and Politics, Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment, Journal of Business Ethics, European Financial Review and Stanford Social Innovation Review. Hachigian previously worked as a senior consultant with Purpose Capital. She provides research and advisory services to government, business and non-profits on impact measurement, social finance and sustainable investing. Recent projects include an evaluation of social finance models for migrant and refugee integration and a retail impact investing guidebook. Hachigian is a judge for the annual Responsible Investor Reporting Awards and an editorial board member for Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment. Hachigian holds a PhD from the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (2015), where she investigated the governance of investment decision-making by sovereign wealth funds. She also holds a Master of Public Administration from Carleton University (2010) and a Bachelor of Arts with Combined Honours in Economics and Political Science from McMaster University (2008).

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Addressing the challenges of transformation through sustainable investment
(Routledge, 2015) Clark, Gordon L.; Hachigian, Heather; McGill, Sarah; Molinari, Claire; Wójcik, Dariusz
For much of the post-WWII era, financial crises flowed from the periphery of the global economy to core financial markets, disturbing equilibrium and challenging established practices (Barro, 2006). Over the last couple of decades we have witnessed a new phenomenon: systemic risk emanating from core financial markets of the global economy and propagating around the world. Settled expectations, the rules of investment management and the virtues of tried-and-true recipes for asset allocation have been turned upside down. Research linking financial uncertainties with social and environmental trends of the twenty-first century is attracting increasing attention among some investors. Macroeconomic imbalances, ageing Western societies leading to increasing dependency ratios, and a political impasse where rules and regulations ‘solve’ past problems but do little to address larger, structural issues such as degradation of the environment, resource scarcity and climate change all contribute to drastically changing the landscape of global financial markets.
Understanding the governance structures that underpin responsible investment decision-making
(Springer, Cham, 2017) Hachigian, Heather
The aim of this essay is to consider the extent to which best practice governance can be adapted to support effective responsible investment (RI) decision-making. Governance refers to the mechanisms and processes by which decision-making is managed. Best practice governance emphasizes institutional coherence, expertise and effective processes of deliberation (Clark and Urwin 2008). The essay focuses on institutional investors with long-term investments horizons, such as pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds. As universal owners, it is widely held that these investors must incorporate relevant environmental and social issues into their investment decision-making to achieve their investment objectives. This essay argues that adding environmental and social dimensions to the already complex process of investment decision-making requires increasing and on-going investment in an investor’s own governance. The form of governance required depends on the perspective motivating an investor’s RI strategy. The literature can be divided broadly into two perspectives. The first perspective suggests that investors should limit their consideration to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues that are underpinned by a sound business case in the form of a financial risk or opportunity. A second perspective suggests that financial risks and opportunities at the portfolio level cannot always meaningfully be separated from broader political, ethical and sustainability issues. This second perspective requires that investors adopt a more reflexive form of governance to understand how their own decision-making frameworks interact with and contribute to shaping risks and opportunities at the systems level.
Reframing the governance challenge for sustainable investment
(Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 2012) Hachigian, Heather; McGill, Sarah M.
In an era of borderless financial markets the financial sector can serve as an important mechanism for addressing long-term environmental, economic and social degradation. In particular, institutional investors tasked with long-term asset-liability management are integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into their decision-making and ownership practices to navigate future investment opportunities and threats. Despite the increase in sustainable investment initiatives, the transition to a more sustainable economy remains an aspiration. We argue this is because sustainable investment has been conceived and executed largely through existing governance frameworks, which are incongruent with the ‘sustainability’ problems facing institutional investors. To illustrate this point, we draw a distinction between traditional and sustainability problems, arguing that the latter are characterized by residuals (as opposed to externalities), such as conflict and behavioural biases and that these residuals are irreducible. This distinction provides critical insight into why institutional investors must invest in their own governance to meet the challenges and opportunities that sustainability problems raise. While far from a comprehensive research agenda, the paper draws on shared insights from the graduate student papers in this special issue to explore questions of innovation in governance required to confront sustainability issues.

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