Q: What is the biggest change you have seen in the industry since you joined?
Ethical and sustainable investing has moved from the fringes and being seen as niche, to being front and centre in a majority of investors’ minds. The reason for this is threefold. First, there is increased pressure from investors who have had enough of historical investing methods.
Second, the prolific rise of data has led to a real awareness that capital needs to be channelled to heal the earth, not continue to harm it. Data has also enabled the industry to respond. Finally, the number of opportunities in the sector has increased tenfold. This brings its own challenges, but the more people talk about it and the more gets done, the greater the impact is.
Q: What is the investment topic most often brought up by clients/investors?
Climate opportunities are still the dominant theme, but this is spreading from clean energy to pollution solutions and food and agriculture. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the focus on food security appeared of secondary importance to energy security.
Now the latter is being dealt with via the onshoring of renewable assets, the issue of not being able to get grain out of Ukraine focused people’s minds more on the issue of food security. Also, with a growing population, we need to be better at, and smarter on, how we feed the people on the planet.
This article first appeared in the September edition of Portfolio Adviser Magazine
