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Investing for impact

WHEB's approach - investments that aim to generate positive impact

Just like our investors, we believe that investing in and supporting businesses that have a positive impact on people and planet can help bring about a zero carbon and more sustainable economy.

 

We believe that positive impact businesses are those whose products and services provide the solutions to environmental or social challenges. 

 

It’s also our belief that, as the global economy transitions to become zero carbon and more sustainable, businesses that generate a positive impact on people and planet will access faster growth markets and gain a long-term competitive advantage.

  • Sustainable growth

    We focus on nine sustainable investment themes with strong growth characteristics, derived from providing solutions to major social and environmental challenges.
  • Quality

    Individual stocks are selected through a ‘bottom-up’ stock-by-stock fundamental and rigorous research process to identify high quality companies.
  • Valuation

    We are disciplined about valuation and have a longer-term investment approach.
Sustainability Themes Diagram Grey

9 sustainable investment themes

A lockstep relationship: positive impact and financial growth

WHEB’s guiding principle is therefore that each of our portfolio company’s success as an investment is driven by the success of the sustainability solution it provides. If every unit of product sold helps to make the world a bit healthier, a bit safer, a bit greener then, 'the sustainability story becomes the equity story’.  

We have established nine investment themes which we use to focus our attention. They include four social (Education, Health, Safety and Wellbeing) and five environmental themes (Cleaner Energy, Environmental Services, Resource Efficiency, Water Management and Sustainable Transport).

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Fundamentals

The 'what' and the 'how'

WHEB’s fundamental analysis complements our thematic focus by providing a ‘bottom-up’ approach to selecting companies for investment. Here, we ensure rigour in our process by using bespoke tools that our experts have developed to zero in on the businesses that offer the most attractive blend of impact and financial return for a reasonable level of risk, based on our analysis.

These tools help us to delve into both ‘what’ a company does, as well as ‘how’ a company operates.

The ‘what’ – WHEB’s innovative ‘Impact Engine’ helps the investment team to assess the intensity of the positive impact generated by a company’s products and services.

The ‘how’ – WHEB’s Fundamental Quality analysis considers a range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, together with strategic, business model and financial analysis.

Our interactive Impact Map shows how these tools are applied to the WHEB Sustainability Strategy and plots the positive impact associated at the aggregate portfolio-level, as well as for each individual stock.

 

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Radically transparent

WHEB’s impact measurement and reporting is considered market leading

In an industry that is famously opaque, at WHEB we are committed to being radically transparent. We want our clients to have confidence that we will remain focused on sustainability and will be consistent in our style, philosophy and the promise we have made to them.

We are transparent about what we invest in and why as well as the impact associated with our investments. 

In addition to guarding against greenwash, transparent reporting also contributes to WHEB’s ambition to support the development of impact investing. By ‘signalling’ our company investments we aim to profile them as highly impactful businesses. We also engage with regulators, policy makers and standard setters to support the development of strong standards for impact investing.

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Stewardship

As investors, WHEB has the opportunity – and the responsibility – to advocate for progressive change at the companies we invest in

In our view, well-run companies consider the interests of their key stakeholders in their decision making. These are simply better managed businesses that we expect to generate superior risk-adjusted returns over the medium to long-term.

With a holding period of 4-7 years for the strategy, our view is inherently long-term and well-above industry averages. This enables us to act as owners of investee companies, rather than short-term traders.

Engagements with investee companies and the broader financial system, as well as voting at company AGMs, are central to how we fulfil our stewardship responsibilities.

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Our Portfolio

We’re passionate about nine critical social and environmental problems confronting society.

Through our investment strategy, we have identified more than 500 companies that we consider to offer products and services which provide the solutions to sustainability challenges.

From this wider universe of companies, our specialist investment team selects a portfolio of companies  that we think are best-placed to provide competitive investment returns for our investors, by providing solutions to these problems.

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Sustainability policies

Our policy documents set out WHEB’s overarching investment philosophy and policy on responsible investment as well as our approaches to stewardship and achieving Net Zero commitments.

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