Introducing Portfolio Explorer

1. No magic numbers or easy answers, just stories of high-quality companies well positioned to contribute to and benefit from sustainable development.

We launched our Asia Pacific sustainable development strategy in 2005. When investing in Asia Pacific and emerging markets it is clear that sustainable development is not just about a single issue like climate change, gender equity or poverty alleviation - it is about all of them because they are all interconnected.

This holistic view of sustainable development means that companies can contribute in many different ways to a better future for people and planet. To reflect this, the tool avoids top-down scores or a focus on a handful of standardised indicators, which are more often about operational efficiency than company impact. Instead, the tool allows viewers to explore the stories of individual companies organised by the diverse contributions they make.

2. Written by our own team, not third-party researchers or external marketers

The company stories are backed by evidence and collected by our team using their years of experience in sustainable investing. We do not rely on third-party researchers to tell us what is sustainable. Instead, we do our own analysis and rigorously test it through company meetings, team discussions and specially commissioned research. We then relate each contribution back to frameworks like Project Drawdown to test our assumptions. 

3. Shows the world the same way we see it, bottom-up, long term and focused on real solutions to difficult problems

We do not claim to have all the answers to the many difficult sustainable development challenges the world faces, nor do we believe that we need to. We believe that investing in high-quality companies run by people with integrity and a long-term view is the best way to allocate capital to organisations positively touching the lives of people around the world and driving the solutions to environmental challenges. These attributes are also the ones we believe will deliver good investment returns for clients. The tool groups companies around solutions, but ultimately is designed to allow users to explore companies from the bottom-up, which is the same way we invest.

4. Provides a balanced view of the companies we invest in

We know that no company is perfect (just like investors!). We engage with our companies to encourage them to improve in ways that will increase their sustainable development contribution and make them a better investment over the long term. The tool provides a balanced view for the companies we invest in, highlighting the positive contributions, but also the risks and areas to improve.

Our investment strategy seeks to invest in companies which both contribute to, and benefit from, sustainable development, achieving positive social and environmental outcomes. All investee companies contribute to improving human development, while many also contribute to positive environmental outcomes.

We assess positive social outcomes by reference to the human development pillars which we developed by reference to, amongst other things, the UN Human Development Index and believe encapsulate the essence of human development.

We assess positive environmental outcomes by reference to the climate solutions developed by Project Drawdown*, a non-profit organisation that has mapped, measured and modelled over 90 different solutions that they believe will contribute to reaching ‘drawdown’ - i.e. the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.

We assess whether a company contributes to, and benefits from, sustainable development by considering whether:

1. there is either a direct or enabling** link between the activities of the company and the achievement of a positive social or environmental outcome;
2. the company can benefit from any contribution to positive social or environmental outcomes through revenue or growth drivers inherent in the company’s business model, strategic initiatives that are backed by research and development or capital expenditure, or from the company’s strong culture e.g. for equity and diversity; and
3. the company recognises potential negative social or environmental outcomes associated with its product or services and works towards minimising such outcomes, e.g. a company that sells affordable nutritious food products in plastic packaging, but is investigating alternative packaging options.

Our Portfolio Explorer focuses on Human Development Pillars and Project Drawdown’s climate solutions and provides information about each company’s contribution.