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Stories of Sustainability

Stories of Sustainability

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  • Climate solutions update

    In mid-2022, Project Drawdown announced 11 new solutions to their collection related to ocean resources, food production, methane management, and materials manufacturing and use.

    20 Jan 2023
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  • Why India: Investing in the Indian subcontinent

    The Indian subcontinent has been a fantastic investment destination over the last few decades. Investment returns in the subcontinent have been primarily driven by India since she liberalised her economy in 1991.

    16 Jan 2023
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  • Why India: Home to high-quality companies

    India is home to many high-quality companies. Our past decades of investing in the Indian subcontinent has demonstrated that exceptional businesses managed by competent, conservative stewards deliver disproportionately better returns through cycles.

    14 Jan 2023
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  • Why accounting choices matter

    Commuters on the London Underground would be familiar with the warning to “mind the gap”. The investment industry is in dire need of a similar warning but with an extra A – “Mind the GAAP”.

    30 Nov 2022
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  • Tackling climate change in emerging markets

    As the human effects of climate change continue to intensify around the world, asset owners and managers are rightly grappling with their responsibilities to help avoid catastrophe.

    13 Oct 2022
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  • The importance of diversity

    How do the Stewart Investors team seek to address diversity? Sashi Reddy discusses the investment team’s approach, and why fostering diversity of thought is not just important but crucial in implementing the team’s investment philosophy for the long term.

    15 Aug 2022
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  • The problem with ESG scores

    Some ESG data can be useful in certain circumstances, but can an over reliance on simplistic ESG scores be a dangerous strategy?

    06 Apr 2022
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  • How big is big enough?

    Today’s technology giants may have many admirable qualities, but should we question their ongoing contribution to sustainable development?

    06 Jan 2022
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  • Exploring outside the lines

    Our interactive tool, Portfolio Explorer is helping us share how impactful companies are contributing to sustainable investments.

    12 Nov 2021
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  • Our Human Development Pillars

    Struggling to clearly articulate the world of ESG investing? You’re not alone. Learn more about our sustainable development framework. Jack Nelson explains.

    11 Nov 2021
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  • The Power of Story

    In a recent essay, Santa Fe economist Brian Arthur challenges economists to describe the world in more than algebraic terms. He believes they should extend their vocabulary (and minds) to include verbs, alongside their highly prized nouns, to allow the underlying processes, context and organic nature of complex systems to be described in full technicolour.

    14 Oct 2021
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  • Ten years in emerging markets

    If the last ten years investing in emerging markets has taught us anything it is that in the long run, quality wins.

    03 Sep 2021
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  • Is Europe leading the way in sustainable business?

    Europe is seldom considered the most exciting place to invest. This is mainly because European index returns – a proxy for average market returns – have been modest over most time frames. But Europe offers some excellent investment opportunities for active investors willing to seek out its treasures.

    21 Jun 2021
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  • Emerging markets’ new generation of tech firms

    Over the last decade, the role and prominence of technology companies in emerging markets has increased markedly. Emerging markets economies have proven themselves capable of producing truly world-leading tech firms. And as smartphone penetration has surged, the positive impact of technology on daily life in emerging markets has been very significant.

    01 Jun 2021
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  • Reasons to invest in Europe

    Even investors who get excited about investing in European equities can understand why many people don’t. A great many savers think their investment options are limited to the average market return provided by an index-tracking fund. And the average returns of European index investments look very average, over almost any time period.

    06 May 2021
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  • The sustainability positioning of an imperfect giant

    In early December 2020, activists from Greenpeace deposited a big sculpture of Nestlé’s* logo, made entirely of plastic waste from Nestlé’s products, in front of its headquarters, alongside a banner with a powerful simple message - ‘Stop feeding the world with plastic’.

    17 Mar 2021
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  • Learning from success: CAMFED

    Education is not freely available to everyone - and in many parts of the world girls are the first to be excluded from it. Girls are the first to drop out of school, and the first to be failed by the system, facing the perils of early marriage, early pregnancy, and abuse. Without the choice to write their own futures, their endless potential is wasted.

    17 Feb 2021
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  • Why do Payable Days matter?

    ‘Payable Days’ is the number of days a company takes to pay its suppliers. Investors often learn in ‘Finance 101’ courses that the longer a company takes to pay its suppliers the stronger its bargaining power is with them. Consequently, this is considered as key evidence of a strong franchise. We beg to differ.

    15 Feb 2021
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  • Rainbow washing the SDGs away

    The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been broadly embraced by financial institutions. This is a positive move, and timely too.

    04 Aug 2020
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  • Active versus passive

    Growing investor concerns about climate and societal crises have contributed to the burgeoning demand for ‘sustainable investment’ funds that take into consideration environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

    25 May 2020
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  • Implementing the Sustainable Development Goal 12

    The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a clear and vital framework around which investors and the broader business community can unite to achieve a collective goal of cleaner business practices. One goal which many investors and businesses are placing emphasis on is SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.

    09 Mar 2020
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  • Challenging the greenwash

    Our philosophy at Stewart Investors is to invest in ‘quality companies’ and our process for identifying them has incorporated a rigorous evaluation of ESG for over three decades. However, our analysis of ESG has never stood in isolation, and must be taken together with assessment of management, franchise and financials.

    12 Feb 2020
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  • Small is beautiful

    This rule of thumb was coined in order to combat a common challenge facing teams trying to solve complex problems. In pursuits like investing, there is a tendency to increase the number of people providing input to the point that the team gets bloated and functions less efficiently.

    07 Nov 2019
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  • Quality & Patience

    Today, asset owners have an unprecedented range of options of where to invest and an even greater number of well-argued reasons for why each of these will be the most attractive home for their capital. Aggressive, untested monetary policy has helped fuel years of above-average equity returns, encouraging many of those who run these strategies to predict handsome returns for investors.

    03 Dec 2018
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  • Our Hippocratic oath in action

    Our Hippocratic oath is something we all hold dearly and have all signed. It underpins our investment philosophy, which is based on identifying quality stewards of strong franchises with good long-term prospects.

    09 Apr 2018
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  • How we select companies

    We have often been asked how we narrow down a universe of 15,000 Asian and Emerging Markets companies to a portfolio of approximately 50. It’s a good question, particularly as now that we invest globally, giving us an investible universe of 65,000 companies, the challenge has become even starker.

    11 Dec 2017
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  • Dual Share Class Blundering

    We used to send letters to companies and stock exchanges extolling the virtues of single share classes, tag along-rights and ‘one share, one vote’. Today, we actively seek out companies with dual share classes. What has changed?

    11 Dec 2017
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  • Tax Approaches

    We consider the tax rates paid by companies that we might invest in on behalf of our clients important because it impacts our assessment of Quality of Management, Franchise and Financials.

    03 Jul 2017
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  • The Sharing Economy

    Sharing resources has gone on for as long as humans have been living in tribes. But without the enabling role of the internet or mobile devices it is hard work in a large complex society with a myriad of goods and services. The internet is now helping to solve this problem.

    03 Jul 2017
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  • Green Bookkeeping

    In 2010, Puma pioneered a new form of corporate reporting. The German sportswear company produced an environmental profit and loss account, which estimated the company and its supply chain to have caused €145m of environmental damage that year, relative to €202m of net profit.

    29 Jun 2017
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  • Does Fund Management have a social purpose?

    The stock market and bond market have their origins in the financial revolution of the late 17th century. The stock market developed to provide funds for overseas trading companies, like the English East India Company, while the bond market funded the state, mostly raising funds for waging of war.

    01 Jun 2017
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  • The Circular Economy

    US clothing retailer Patagonia famously encouraged consumers not to buy their jackets in 2011...

    03 May 2017
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  • Alice in Financeland

    At first glance, there is little about the current financial system that makes sense. The more one looks, the less sense it makes. In theory the financial sector is supposed to support the long-term growth of the real economy. In practice, it has become so detached from the real world that it is more akin to a fantasy land, inhabited by a growing number of peculiar characters undertaking nonsensical tasks. Lewis Carroll’s Alice would be very much at home.

    03 Apr 2017
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  • The Plastics Paradox

    Plastic is wonderful stuff. It is lightweight, so less carbon intensive to move around. It is durable, mouldable and less energy intensive to make than aluminium or glass. It helps reduce food waste and decreases the risk of food contamination.

    03 Apr 2017
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