Is GLG Partners going green?

The London-based hedge fund giant has hired consulting firm Mercer to see how climate changes and other environmental concerns are changing mainstream investing. The study will focus on public equity products in the institutional marketplace, especially in Western Europe and North America.

“We believe that environmental liabilities are already changing the economics of some industries and will affect most industries’ returns over the next 10 years,” GLG founder Pierre Lagrange said. “Our view, which is supported by the McKinsey/Vattenfall report and work of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University, is that many of the necessary improvements can be realized with existing commercially available technologies, which raises the important question of how best to focus beyond the early VC, clean tech and other typical ‘SRI’ investments, to integrate environmental factors into profitable mainstream investing.”

GLG said Mercer’s report will be made available in the fall.