As featured in the Financial Standard this Q&A with our Chief Investment Officer David Macri discusses:
Our Ethical Charter has guided all investment decisions and underpinned our business practices for over 30 years. All our underlying companies and investments in our portfolios have passed our comprehensive ethical screening process^.
We offer a suite of 8 managed funds, and 13 investment options in our super fund, and because we believe in transparency, we publish the names of our investee companies on our website.
Our investment team manage the investments of our funds and work closely with our inhouse ethics research team to make sure all our investments meet our Ethical Charter while delivering, competitive returns.
We’ve shown that your clients don’t need to compromise on long-term performance if they choose to invest ethically, whether this be through our Managed fund, Super or Pension Products. One example of this is the performance of our flagship fund, the Australian Shares Wholesale Fund which has returned 15% p.a.* since inception of the fund.
We believe the power of money can be harnessed to create positive change for the planet, people and animals.
We use our Ethical Charter as a framework to grapple with complex problems and the far-reaching consequences of unethical investments.
Our Charter is the compass we use to navigate through the complexities of our investments and business decisions as we examine topical issues on their merits from all angles.
In fact, we believe that incorporating ethics into our investment process helps us identify investment risks and opportunities earlier than most other funds.
^ Assured by KPMG. Please note the Advocacy Fund has provision to buy shares in companies that don’t pass our ethical charter for the purposes of advocacy
"Responsible investment funds continue to outperform mainstream funds over most time frames and asset classes, with Australian figures contributing to the overwhelming body of evidence showing that responsible and ethical investing leads to better investment outcomes, alongside benefiting people and the planet."
Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA), Responsible Investment Benchmark Report 2019 Australia