2023-07-10 20:00:11
Addiction to screens, attention or sleep disorders, exposure of children to inappropriate content: after the climate, the mental health of users of high technologies is becoming the new battle horse of institutional investors anxious to give tangible content to ESG (environment-social-governance) strategies, this triptych supposed to guarantee that long-term issues are taken into account in investment choices.
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Twenty-seven management companies are therefore kicking off, on Tuesday July 11, a “coalition” to push high-tech companies to take concrete measures, with the stated ambition of“mitigating the potentially negative impact of technology on mental health and well-being”.
In the crosshairs of these investors who claim more than 2,000 billion euros in assets under management are some of the largest capitalizations in the world: manufacturers of mobile phones like Apple and Samsung, video games like Microsoft, content like Netflix, or more internet giants like Alphabet and Tencent.
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Heavyweights, hence the interest for investors to unite to hope to weigh against them, explains Marie Vallaeys, ESG analyst at Sycomore AM, one of the companies behind the project. Because today, she explains, “when we try to contact companies on subjects that we consider little covered, we often get poor quality answers, or even no answer at all. In the tech sector, this is particularly the case regarding the impact in terms of well-being and mental health on end users”.
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The coalition says it wants to obtain clear objectives for reducing the risks of early and excessive use of screens in children as well as addiction, stress or sleep disorders in adults. So many problems sometimes overlooked by tech players, while their long-term consequences have for years been the subject of in-depth scientific studies and are of growing interest to regulatory authorities in Europe, in the United States. States and China.
“The purpose of the dialogue is also to make companies aware of the regulatory framework that is being prepared. You might as well anticipate regulation and define policies that respond to it rather than having, at worst, to pay fines”, summarizes Théo Kotula, ESG analyst at Axa IM, another initiator of the project. Hoping that the number of investors involved and the publicity of the approach will be enough to encourage companies to get involved, by developing action plans or improving the transparency and effectiveness of existing measures.
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