Biodiversity is the term commonly used to refer to the variety of living species on Earth, including plants, animals, bacteria and fungi. It is not a marketable good or product, nor a service; it is the living web that connects the tangible and intangible elements of healthy ecosystems.
Stewart Investors focus on long-term investments in high-quality companies for sustainable growth. Short-term market fluctuations are less informative than long-term trends, as shown by Infineon's performance.
Our investment approach favours companies that provide products and services that meet basic needs, solve difficult problems and seek to do more with less. A result of our investment philosophy means that we avoid companies that have a significant negative impact on the natural environment.
We provide regular strategy updates including portfolio changes and proxy voting, and links to our investment rationales, latest articles, statements, webcasts and videos which explore our thinking on sustainable investment, including the challenges and issues we grapple with in our search for high-quality companies.
Humanity is using nature 1.7 times faster than Earth’s biocapacity can regenerate. This is clearly unsustainable. We need to take urgent action to evolve our economic system from linear to circular.
We have decided to remove the word ‘Sustainability’ from the Stewart Investors fund names. Why? Three and a half slow-burning thoughts have combined to make it the right time.
Access to affordable diagnostics is crucial for healthcare, but it's a challenge in poorer countries. The Access to Medicines Foundation incentivises diagnostic companies and Stewart Investors partners with them to analyse investments.
Like many other environmental and social risks, biodiversity risks and impacts can be hard to assess as they are either hidden from the outside or occur deep in company supply chains.
The political chaos and the steady news flow emanating from India’s sensationalist media is often perceived as a risk. We disagree. It is no different to what we see in any other democratic society.
Access to Medicines Index promotes best practices, accelerates uptake by pharma companies, raises standards, and improves medicine access. We rely on this index to assess companies' approach to this critical issue.
Access to medicines latest research on Access to Generics is an important tool to help build a picture of areas where generics companies can continue improving and where investors can focus their engagement to drive better health and business outcomes, raising the bar for what affordable and accessible medicine means worldwide.
Over the last twelve months, our Asia and Global Emerging Markets portfolios have been increasing their exposure to Chinese equities. As bottom-up stockpickers, we have become more optimistic about the potential returns from owning what we believe to be some of China’s best businesses at very reasonable valuations.
In Ohio, the blend of hard work, good business sense, independent thinking and the ability to take risks when appropriate, has delivered a group of companies that are well worth stopping for.
As long-term investors with a focus on sustainability, Stewart Investors have always been interested in how healthcare companies approach the issue of access to medicines.
An update on our collaborative engagement on conflict minerals in the semiconductor supply chain and the Responsible Minerals Initiative Investor Network.
OpenAI released GPT-4, the sophisticated Large Language Model (LLM) behind ChatGPT, one year ago. Over that year, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has never been out of the news and the market cap of US tech stocks has risen by 50%
We thought it could be useful to showcase a selection of companies we’re referring to as the Sustainable 6. This is just one selection we think reflects the variety, quality, and excellent sustainability positioning of all the companies we invest in for clients.
Sashi Reddy and Sujaya Desai speak to Pensions & Investments about the importance of stewardship, and how we look for management teams who have the intention and ability to leave businesses in much better shape than they found them in.
Prioritising long-term growth over short-term gains takes confidence and vision from high-quality management. Great stewardship through long-term decision making benefits businesses in myriad ways but it doesn’t manifest the same way in every company.
Every year we produce around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste worldwide. Of the seven billion tonnes of waste amassed to date, less than 10% of this has been recycled. The remaining 90% is buried in landfills, makes its way overseas to be burnt, or is lost into the environment where it can live for up to 400 years.
In October 2022 the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its much anticipated consultation on proposed Sustainability Disclosure Requirements, investment labels and restrictions on the use of sustainability-related terms in product naming and marketing.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
Jack Nelson speaks to the Investment Innovation Institute. In this insightful fireside chat, they discuss some of the common misconceptions about investing in emerging markets.
We are thrilled that for the second year running, Stewart Investors has been recognised as a Responsible Investment Leader 2022 by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA).
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.
On a recent trip to Europe, Hanna Ranstrand visited various companies who are building their businesses through acquisitions. Here, Hanna discusses these companies in more detail.
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.
We launched our first sustainable investment fund in 2005. At that time we were convinced all companies would need to adjust to operating in an increasingly carbon-constrained world, and more companies would need to develop solutions to make economies less carbon intensive. Our conviction has never waned, nor has the urgency of the carbon-reduction challenge.
Welcome to our climate report. In the report we share a baseline of our climate change-related risks, opportunities and impacts, from which our progress towards zero-carbon portfolios and operations can be assessed in the years ahead.
Finding there was a lack of information on smallholder farmer supply chains and their environmental impact, we commissioned research with NIRAS-LTS International to learn more.
Pablo Berrutti, Senior Investment Specialist at Stewart Investors, speaks to Wouter Klijn of the [i3] Investment Innovation Institute in Australia to discuss the likelihood of fossil fuel-based companies making the transition to low carbon business models and pose the question whether companies’ quick retreat from Russia during the invasion of Ukraine is a vindication for ESG.
The emergence of trends that will likely shape the next decade, including cloud computing, automation, connectivity and artificial intelligence (AI), has created some appealing honeypots for investors to dip their paws into. These companies are often well positioned in the face of broad sustainability tailwinds and characterised by steady growth streams, so one
can understand the allure.
We believe judgement is a better guide to voting than a rules-based approach. Our voting policy is based on a parsimonious set of principles and key considerations that in our judgement are likely to be applicable to all companies in the vast majority of circumstances.
We are delighted that Stewart Investors has won the inaugural Fund Manager of the Year – Sustainable Investing category at the 2022 Morningstar Australia Awards.
Heating and air conditioning usage account for a large percentage of the energy consumed in the average American home. By installing energy-efficient HVACR systems, Watsco, Inc. are assisting home owners to reduce their environmental footprint and tackle climate change.
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.
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.
‘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.
One of the key tenets of our investment philosophy has long been a focus on the cultures and people behind businesses. We believe that franchises that are successful over the long term are built on the backs of unique cultures that have the wherewithal to resist short-term pressure in favour of nurturing a sustainable business over decades, have the ability to think diversely about the opportunities ahead and the risks they might face, and the operational focus to deliver on their strategies year after year.
Since our first sustainable development-focused strategy launched in 2005, human development has been a key focus area given our long history of investing in Asia Pacific and emerging markets.
In the sequel to Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Alice climbs ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ and finds another fantastical world, absent of reason and where everything is reversed. This crisis of logic is all too evident when in investing in Asia Pacific.
If asked to list climate change solutions, many of us would start with renewable energy. It is obviously a key one given the use of fossil fuels for energy is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally.
We recognise the existence of inequality and institutional racism across the world – we share the horror felt by so many as we have witnessed events that highlight the inequality, prejudice and sheer injustice faced by members of the black community the world over.
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.