WHEB publish innovative new ‘Impact’ Report

Serial ‘sustainability’  innovators WHEB have this week published a report that sets out the ‘impacts’ of where they invest – setting out, with numbers and explanations, the wider effects of their investment decisions.

See report: WHEB Reporting Impact_2014

Founded as an environmental corporate finance boutique in the 1990’s and boasting Ben Goldsmith as a partner since 2003, WHEB has always sought to raise the bar in terms of showing what investors can do if they put their minds to it.

For anyone who has ever questioned the rights and wrongs of the financial community and our ability to improve things, this report – the first of its kind, is uplifting reading.

The level of work that must have gone into producing it would, in my view, have challenged even the largest of fund management houses.  Yet in terms of its value, addressing questions such as ‘is my money really making a difference?’, ‘what is good about this fund?’, or ‘can I trust them to invest in companies that really understand the issues I care about?’ this is a hugely useful piece of work.

So if you have clients who are likely to agree with the headline in the report  ‘Sustainability themes are growth themes’ ; who will be pleased to see that the carbon footprint of this fund is roughly 1/3 of that of other comparable funds – or want to see fund managers actually measuring the ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) impacts of the companies they invest in then read on…WHEB Reporting Impact_2014.

•  Link to FP WHEB Sustainability Fund web site