Published 2022-07-01

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Fredric Nyström joins Mistra’s Committee for Asset Management

Fredric Nyström is the Head of Sustainability and Corporate Governance at AP3. He has a keen eye when assessing asset managers’ sustainability work and is not afraid of making demands. He is now taking his place as a member of Mistra’s Committee for Asset Management and sees huge value in disseminating research to players on the financial markets.

Fredric Nyström started in his new position as Head of Sustainability and Corporate Governance at the Third Swedish National Pension Fund (AP3) in May, with overall responsibility for leading the fund’s sustainability work. At the same time, a sustainability group was formed, comprising three people who will work on the issue. Nyström previously worked as Head of Responsible Investment at Öhman Fonder, where he worked to integrate sustainability criteria among asset managers, to review risks and opportunities linked to sustainability, as well as to develop corporate governance and identify companies that did not live up to sustainability requirements.

“This includes looking at companies from a long-term perspective and examining how ownership can be utilised to push them in a sustainable direction, using dialogue and requirements,” says Nyström.

As part of Mistra’s Committee for Asset Management, he believes his knowledge and experience will be very useful in evaluating asset managers’ sustainability work.

“Many investors are now quicker at capturing requirements and taking responsibility, but there are also many cases of lots of talking but no real action. I believe I can see through this and evaluate which ones are really doing good things and where talk or action has a real effect. For Mistra, it is important to find investments that have a clear societal impact.”

Nyström hopes that Mistra’s Committee for Asset Management can support asset managers on their journey toward sustainability; the committee is now discussing various ways to do this successfully. One important element that Nyström can see is to disseminate knowledge and results from Mistra’s research even further.

“Mistra’s research programmes have a great deal of useful knowledge that can benefit asset managers. We want to help make research more available to them in a variety of ways.”

A more proactive attitude to environmental issues

In the current global situation and economic uncertainty, Fredric Nyström believes that we will see a short-term setback as regards fossil fuels, but increased investments in renewables in the long term. However, he does believe that sustainability work will continue to progress. While the climate issue has long been discussed and recently become established among players in the financial market, he is now seeing a more proactive attitude to working on environmental issues – not least regarding biodiversity.

“You could say that the financial markets have discussed the climate since the 1950s, and taken a long time to establish and work on standards and frameworks. Now things are happening fast and they are acting upon research and the science of biodiversity, not least when it comes to corporate governance.”

Fredric Nyström takes up his place on Mistra’s Committee for Asset Management on 1 July 2022. It is chaired by Märtha Josefsson, and the other members are Torbjörn Hamnmark, Maritha Lindberg, Anna Jakobsson and Mistra’s CEO Anna Jöborn.