Cooking up something fresh in a cultural melting pot
Dr. Stephanie Giamporcaro is the newest addition to the UCT GSB
With a half-Spanish mother and an Italian father, born in France and married to a
South African, it comes as little surprise that Dr. Stephanie Giamporcaro is
fascinated by multiculturalism. After extensive studies and some informative
travels, this energetic scholar has found her niche as a senior lecturer at the UCT
Graduate School of Business, contextualising her research in our country’s
vibrant, ever-changing environment.
“I am greatly interested in the multiculturalism in South Africa,” she says. “The tensions
in society, the differences, and the present versus the past. It is interesting that here in
South Africa, people are talking about it; its complexity. It is a good thing, and I am
particularly interested in the dialogue about race. In Europe, something like that would
not necessarily be spoken about.”
Dr. Giamporcaro also finds the South African context a special challenge to the area of
sustainability. “It is exciting to look at this concept of sustainability and responsibility
here,” she says. “In Europe, it is a given – you have to be socially and environmentally
conscious. In South Africa, the context is very different: you have to include the question
of development and black empowerment, which you cannot ignore when you are
implementing solutions.”
Dr. Giamporcaro joined the faculty as a senior lecturer in October 2011, and is also a
research associate at the Environmental Economics Policy Research Unit (EPRU),
which is housed at the UCT School of Economics. In July 2006, she obtained her PhD in
social sciences, studying the implementation of sustainable and responsible investment
(SRI) approaches in France, and her interests have since expanded to researching SRI
in Africa.
This research now informs the bulk of her teaching to MBA and MPhil Development
Finance students at the GSB – while she continues to research the social studies of
finance, the anthropology of market and consumption, economic sociology, carbon
finance and responsible and sustainable investment studies. She is currently examining
the implementation of innovative finance tools, e.g. socially responsible investment
funds, greens funds or carbon funds.
“It is vital to look at where our investments are going,” she says. “For example, those
who are lucky enough to be employed should be putting a percentage of their money
into a pension scheme, but almost without exception, those of us who do this do not
actually know where our money is going. We invest in a scheme without knowing what
we are financing or whether it will have a long-term negative impact.”
Considering this issue is not just a matter of social conscience but is essential for
businesses if they want to succeed with a new generation of investors, she believes. “In
the younger generation, people want to invest in products that do not contradict who
they are. So thinking about only financial profit is short-sighted. As an academic concept
or an economic framework, sustainability is about every human being, no matter where
they are in society, being able to have a choice. This can be a proactive choice for
people who are able to do it, but organisations should start redesigning their products so
as to integrate these concepts.”
Transparency is also a major concern for Dr. Giamporcaro, who was formerly the head
of Sustainable and Responsible Investment Research at Novethic, a professional
research centre on sustainability in Paris. Novethic was a subsidiary of Caisse des
Dépôts, one of the biggest French public investment groups, and Dr. Giamporcaro also
served as a consultant for French investors on sustainable and responsible investment
strategies. Most often, she says, it was challenging to convince companies to adopt a
policy of transparency on their sustainability policies.
“One of my jobs was to rate investment products on their environmental and social
aspects,” she says. “Our position was not to take people’s word for granted, but to
provide to the market a tool to know what they were doing. We analysed the practices of
the fund managers. Initially, they were very closed, saying this was essential to maintain
a competitive advantage. But if you want to be sustainable, you have to be transparent
and say what you do.
“We told them that if they didn’t tell us what companies they were investing in, it would
become a problem. It is not true that secrecy delivers a competitive advantage – it is
more of a secrecy culture. So we introduced as an aspect of the rating the ability to
disclose and communicate. In client reports, we wanted them to communicate not only
on the financial aspects, but to balance this with other factors. So it was really about
integrating the two things – finances and green thinking – beyond the superficial. And
after a while, they really bought into it and began sending us everything.
“The system we designed was very transparent. It was a way for them to know what
everybody was doing, and get better at what they were doing.”
It is also vital to retain a systemic view of economics if one is to measure sustainability
with any kind of real understanding, she says. “Sustainable and responsible investment
brings you to a systemic view. Many of us saw the recession coming because products
were junk. And now, we are still suffering from the financial crisis,” she says.
“It’s not only about greed, but how the system is designed. My research is about that –
trying to understand the sociology of finance: how you have to discuss issues and not
take for granted that we just need to make more money. This can be very negative,
because if you do not look at the means you are choosing to meet your end, you can
blow up all your architecture.”
And this could have fatal consequences globally, she believes – adding that thorough
analysis could be the key to a healthier economic system in the long run. “I am part of a
group of scholars who believe you have to look at finance through a sociological and
anthropological perspective,” she says. “There needs to be more criticism; it cannot just
be about getting one’s bonus at the end of the year.”
Ends