Monday 12th November 2018: WHEB Asset Management has won the ‘Impact Champion’ award in the Asset Manager Firm category at the Social Investment Academy (SIA) inaugural Impact Awards.
Hosted by Worthstone, Founder Gavin Francis said, “the asset manager award is for fund managers who use investment strategies that target and evaluate impact in addition to financial returns.”
The judges said they had chosen a winner out of a “very strong field” and felt that WHEB “has a demonstrable focus on impact and is contributing in a variety of significant ways to the development of this market.”
The judges’ comments continued as follows:
- As an asset manager their sustainable investment strategy integrates ESG and impact throughout the investment process, seeing it as a source of return.
- From an impact perspective this firm has led the way with their quantification of the positive environmental and social impact of their fund explained in their excellent impact report and microsite. Their Impact Calculator allows all investors to see the impact of their investments.
- This firm itself is committed to the high standards of transparency, accountability and governance it seeks in its investments – for example it is a B corporation and has an independent advisory committee which determines whether the sustainable investment philosophy is applied consistently. It also publishes the minutes of the Independent Investment Advisory Committee meetings on their website, which takes place three times a year.
- And finally, the firm is committed to the development of impact investing not only broadly but also [..for] the development of the retail investment intermediaries’ market.
The awards were presented by Elizabeth Corley – CBE & Chair of PM-endorsed Implementation Taskforce for Social Impact Investment. And the judging panel consisted of Jamie Broderick – Former Head of UBS Wealth Management, Abigail Rotheroe – Head of Impact at Project Snowball, Russell Facer – Managing Director at threesixty services LLP, Evita Zanuso – Senior Director at Big Society Capital and Aine Kelly – Independent Impact Consultant at the Impact Management Project.
On winning the award, WHEB’s Managing Partner George Latham said: “WHEB is really honoured to receive this inaugural Impact Champion award, and to have been a part of the Social Investment Academy. The SIA is doing so much to make investing for positive impact available to a wider audience of savers and investors and is enabling more money to be put to work towards a positive purpose.”
To read more about the awards and the other winners, please click here.
