In June 1999, we launched the Murray Ethical World Fund, now renamed Aberdeen Ethical World Fund (AEWF). As a true global portfolio, AEWF requires that companies have a sound financial base and also operate with integrity towards their customers, employees, the local community and the environment.

Aberdeen Asset Management believes that ethically minded investments will become increasingly popular as individuals realise they can influence corporate behaviour by investing according to their conscience. We are helping to build a culture of responsible investing by providing our clients with products and investment services which adhere to rigid standards of financial performance and social responsibility.

Aberdeen Asset Management is regulated by the FSA.
 

AEGON Asset Management offers investors a choice of two ethical funds. Both are designed to meet the needs of clients who wish to make investment decisions based on strong ethical principles. The Ethical Fund invests in UK equities, while the Ethical Income Fund invests solely in corporate bonds. Both funds use highly selective investment criteria, and do not invest in any company whose activities could be considered harmful to society or the environment.

The ethical screening process evaluates the effects that certain companies’ activities, products and services can have on society at large. Ethical funds avoid investment in companies that harm people, animals or the environment. Established in 1989, the Ethical Fund is well respected for the stringency and diversity of the selection process it employs. The Ethical Income Fund follows the same criteria, while offering investors a higher level of potential income.
 

Agro-Ecological is the only agricultural asset management firm concentrating solely on organic/ecological agriculture.

Our goal is to help investors achieve outperformance (financial and ecological) in their farmland investments.

We have significant long term experience and expertise in the ecological management of farmland, which enables us to identify attractive and appropriate opportunities for investment. The Agro-Ecological team combine hands-on farming expertise with strong portfolio management skills to generate optimal investment and ecological returns.

Our primary investment location is New Zealand, where a remarkable opportunistic landscape currently exists for investors in farmland. Our global reach also extends to the United States where demand growth remains strong and many markets remain significantly undersupplied, and to South America (Uruguay).

Our focus is exclusively on profitable, sustainable and ecologically literate farmland asset management.          

Agro-Ecological is poised to launch the Agro-Ecological Farmland Fund; the world’s first organic farmland fund.

Adam Seitchik leads Auriel Capital’s initiative to provide tailored Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment strategies for institutional investors in the UK, Europe and North America.  Auriel’s portfolio engineering platform allows for the seamless integration of ESG data into equity portfolios, enabling institutions to manage their long-term ESG risks while actively seeking returns.  Previously, Adam was Chief Investment Officer at Trillium Asset Management where he oversaw US$1 billion in investment portfolios integrating ESG with traditional investment strategies. Trillium is the oldest and largest independent US firm dedicated to responsible investing.  Prior to joining Auriel, Adam built a successful track record in equity investment at Trillium and has brought his experience in responsible investing to Auriel's equity platform.  As Chief Global Strategist in London, Adam worked closely together at Deutsche Asset Management with Auriel’s founding partners.  His knowledge of ESG risks and opportunities integrates extremely well into Auriel’s systematic approach to equity investment and allows us to provide genuinely innovative ESG solutions for our clients.  Auriel’s platform is ideally suited to sophisticated institutional investors seeking crafted ESG solutions that meet their evolving fiduciary responsibilities.

Auriel Capital Management is a London-based institutional asset management firm specializing in absolute return strategies. The firm manages global macro, currency and equity market neutral strategies for clients in the UK, Europe, and North America. Customised long-only or long-tilted ESG equity solutions are also available.  Auriel was founded in 2004 by Larry Abele, Anoosh Lachin and Asif Noor who previously had worked together at Deutsche Asset Management.   Auriel Capital Management specialises in empirical research, portfolio construction and risk management and employs these capabilities to develop uncorrelated, customized, transparent and liquid alpha strategies.  Since launching in April 2004 with $20 million, Auriel’s assets under management have grown to over $500 million.

To make sure we continue to meet the expectations of our stakeholders, we are increasingly playing a trendsetting role in the ongoing Responsible Investment debate. This reflects our conviction that environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities are key contributors to better risk-adjusted long-term returns. Our funds, aimed at long-term capital growth, are invested in the securities of financially superior companies that respect stringent social and environmental standards.

In June 2006, Jean-Pierre Hellebuyck (vice-chairman of AXA-IM) appointed Raj Thamotheram as Director of Responsible Investment. One of Raj’s early missions has been to reshape and develop AXA IM’s RI team through the merger of the corporate governance (London) and SRI (Paris) teams. A growing team of 8, AXA IM’s RI division has now also been further strengthened by the addition of a senior quantitative analyst.

Our primary aim is to meet clients’ investment objectives within agreed risk parameters. To achieve this we manage client’s assets via a rigorous investment process including analysis of both financial and non-financial factors. Research into the social, environmental and ethical (SEE) stance of companies is integrated within this process (and applies to all our pan-European equity funds). It is our belief that our quality companies, operating at an environmentally and socially sustainable level are more likely to deliver long-term shareholder value.

CCM manages over £9bn of assets on behalf of HNWI, family offices, charities and specialist institutions. Alongside our integrated SEE investment process we offer ethical screening for clients with specific ethical concerns. We have a dedicated Charity team and the most comprehensive range of CIFs (Charity Commission Authorised Common Investment Funds) in the UK.

For more information please contact:
Alexia Zavos (for Private Clients) or
Edward Harley 020 7155 5828.
 

Having managed funds for charities, large and small, since 1958 we know that needs vary widely and can be complex. Short-term obligations have to be met and longer-term spending has to be planned for. Getting the right balance is the key to success. To reflect this we have developed a range of ethically screened funds which provides great flexibility and choice.

As pioneers of ethical and responsible investment, we are commited to engaging with companies and other organisations in a constructive way to push forward a positive agenda for change.

AIMS operates in the City and as at 31st May, Funds under management were over £800m, with £660m relating to Ecclesiastical General, Life and Pension Business and £145 to Investment Retail Funds.

The Funds include the Amity Fund, launched in 1988 and was one of the first ethically screened investment Funds in the UK. Sue Round has managed the fund since inception. The ‘restricted’ universe of Companies available to this ethically screened fund has not impeded performance and the Fund is 4 star rated by Standard and Poors and Sue Round is AA rated by Citywire.

The Investment Objective is to provide long-term capital and income growth, by investing in companies that meet the ethical criteria applied by the investment manager. The funds will be invested principally in British companies.

The Allchurches Amity Fund is an ethically screened fund, established to offer a positive emphasis to investments for individuals, corporate bodies and charitable groups alike. It is designed for those wishing to match their investments with their ideals, for whom financial gain is not the sole consideration. The manager aims to invest in companies which demonstrate a positive contribution to the quality of individual and community life and which respect and protect the environment. Investments include companies involved in pollution control, waste management, energy conservation, housing, education, home safety, medical and health care.

The principal areas which the managers seek to avoid are companies with material interests in countries with repressive regimes, the production of alcohol, tobacco, gambling and producers of magazines or videos of an explicit or violent nature. The fund also avoids investing in companies involved in the manufacture of strategic arms and the use of animals for cosmetic research.
 

The CFB and Epworth have combined funds under management of over £900m, making it by size one of the top 15 charity fund management groups. Epworth shares the same staff, premises and investment philosophy as the CFB. Epworth seeks to provide a high quality investment service achieving above average financial returns for clients. An integral part of the investment decision-making process is to examine the ethical dimension, and thereby construct investment portfolios which are consistent with the moral stance and teaching of the Christian faith. In addition, both Epworth and the CFB are committed to engaging in constructive dialogue with company managements to influence their behaviour.

It is sometimes said that imposing ethical criteria on an investment portfolio must lower financial returns. However, the CFB's long-term track record demonstrates that it is possible to combine ethical concerns and a good financial return. Over the years, investors in the CFB's UK equity and fixed interest funds have seen outperformance of both the average fund and the relevant indices.

Epworth launched the Affirmative Equity and Fixed Interest Funds in 2001 to provide clients with the benefits and simplicity of common investment funds.
 

F&C has long been at the forefront of ethical investment management. It launched Stewardship, the first socially responsible unit trust in the UK, in 1984 and this remains the largest SRI fund in the UK today.

At F&C, we are constantly seeking new ways to embrace social responsibility in our investments. In 1999 we launched reo®, the Responsible Engagement Overlay, providing a way for institutional pension funds to address ethical and environmental issues by means of engagement.

Engagement and Selection are the two ways that F&C currently enables its investors to achieve the financial returns they expect, while addressing their social responsibilities.
 

Friends Provident's Stewardship range of nine funds includes UK, International and Managed fund options across a range of investment products. The Stewardship funds are all screened against the same negative and positive ethical criteria. As at 31st January 2004 Stewardship had funds under management of around £1.5 billion.

Friends Provident has for some time considered the Ethical Investment market to be an important growth area and the recent change in pension rules has confirmed this view. In 1998, Friends Provident increased SRI capabilities by creating a Governance and SRI unit, which is now (2004) eleven people strong, the largest team of its kind in Europe. This team supplies information to the Committee of Reference who are tasked with making policy and company approval decisions on behalf of the Stewardship investors.

Another important part of the GSRI team's role is to engage with companies in order to try to encourage better corporate practices with regard to ethical, social and environmental issues. Whilst Stewardship has done this to some extent for many years, the creation of this team has substantially increased the Group's ability to be active in this way.

This approach has now been extended across the Group's equity assets, although it does not influence investment decisions in non-Stewardship funds. This approach, which was formally adopted by the Friends Provident board in April 2000, is managed and marketed by the Group's fund management arm, ISIS Asset Management Plc as 'reo^®' (responsible engagement overlay). This policy applies to all the group's equity investments and as such applies to almost all of Friends Provident's retail funds.
 

GO has two main product offerings:

The GO European Focus Fund, which invests in European public companies where value can be added through exercising owners' rights to address key structural or strategic governance weaknesses that have impaired company performance and the GO Stewardship Service, which offers voting and underlying engagement services covering 700 European and 500 US quoted equities, combined with a more intensive programme of enhanced-value engagement on a conceptual 'portfolio' of clients’ investments.

GO's operations in Europe and the US bring together experienced professionals with general business skills, investment management and governance expertise to effect change at public companies that adds long-term value.

The team of specialist investment managers and analysts have established an international reputation for their commitment to original research analysing environmental, social and financial aspects of corporate activity. The team works together to identify investment opportunities and maintain a proprietary database of companies world-wide. All companies whose stocks are purchased for socially responsible investment portfolios are fully researched, contacted and visited to ensure that the stocks meet both investment and ethical criteria. This double hurdle produces a universe of high quality stocks that have the potential to achieve consistently superior earnings growth.
 

Investment philosophy and edge

Impax believes that, by applying a deep understanding of the effects of environmental regulation, technology and economic policy on the environmental sector, our investment teams will be able to out-perform over the medium to long-term. We are an investment led organisation targeting the best risk-adjusted returns while investing responsibly. We have been environmental sector specialists since 1994 and are able to leverage extensive experience, comprehensive industry insights and an international network of contacts.

 Impax employs highly educated and talented individuals to focus on a small number of carefully designed investment strategies. Our investment team members typically have engineering or scientific backgrounds and/or have spent the majority of their careers in the environmental sector. Key team members have been working together at Impax for over a decade and are significant owners of the business.

 Commitment to clients

Impax has over a decade of investment experience and now manages pooled vehicles for institutional and retail investors and segregated accounts for institutional investors and private wealth managers. The firm has attracted a long list of high quality investors who have typically remained committed to our products for many years. We regard our investors as partners who share our long term investment perspective and understand the exciting opportunities offered by the environmental sector.

 Impax funds

Impax manages and advises funds across four different asset classes:

 ·          Listed Equities. The Impax Environmental Markets plc investment trust and its sister UCITS fund Impax Environmental Markets (Ireland ) invest in “pure play” listed companies that derive at least 50% of their business from the environmental sector. The IFSL Impax Environmental Leaders Fund invests in a broader range of listed companies that derive at least 20% of their business from the environmental sector.

 ·          Hedge Fund. The Impax Environmental Hedge Fundtakes long and short positions in environmental sector companies, enabling investors to benefit from Impax’s “best ideas.”

 ·          Venture Capital. Up to 10% of the Impax Environmental Markets funds can be invested in late-stage unquoted companies.

 ·          Private Equity. Impax New Energy Investors LP is a private equity fund designed to take advantage of the substantial investment in the renewable energy sector by investing in projects, project-related assets, and associated infrastructure.

Insight is a dynamic asset manager recognised as an innovative company, proud of the success it has achieved and the business it has built.

We provide investment services and financial solutions to a wide range of corporations as well as insurance companies and public sector clients. Our innovative investment platform provides our clients with access to a wide range of specialist capabilities to help provide the most effective solutions. These include liability driven investment, fixed income, absolute return, multi asset and specialist equities as well as an innovative range of cash management solutions.

We believe our distinct investment culture, excellent client service and the high quality of our investment professionals is key to us understanding the marketplace and providing solutions that help us to achieve our clients’ unique objectives. 

Products include the Jupiter Ecology Fund (launched in 1988) and the Jupiter Environmental Opportunities Fund (launched in 1999). The company also manages the Jupiter Global Green Investment Trust and the Lincoln Green Funds. It also provides segregated socially responsible investment services for private and institutional clients.

Jupiter's primary aim of achieving good investment results for its clients is undertaken by its specialist SRI Department headed by Emma Howard Boyd. Investment decisions are made by the specialist SRI Fund Management Team led by Charlie Thomas. The SRI & Governance Team is dedicated to the in-depth assessment of companies' environmental, social and corporate governance performance, with an emphasis on positive corporate behaviour.

The SRI & Governance Team places particular importance on engaging with company management during the research process. Through questionnaires, discussions, meetings and on-site visits, the SRI & Governance Team builds up a detailed picture of a company's environmental, social and corporate governance performance and is able to encourage measures for positive improvement.

Jupiter's SRI & Governance Team meets quarterly with its Advisory Committee, made up of senior environmentalists, who review companies approved by the SRI & Governance Team, offer advice on emerging environmental and social trends and guide the development of research methodology.
  

The Living Planet Fund – Equity, a Luxembourg registered Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) fund investing in global equities, was launched in July 2003. It is listed on the Luxembourg stock exchange and is compliant with European Union UCITs III regulations.

The fund is a quality financial product that allows retail and institutional investors to align their ethical values with their investment goals.

It has a long term investment strategy and constitutes its portfolio by adopting 4 SRI approaches:

In addition to meeting the positive ethical criteria for socially responsible investment, QUADRIS develops and initiates programmes to ensure that the educational and social welfare of the workforce and community is met and that the programme of rehabilitation and enhancement of the natural environment is maintained.

QUADRIS' aim is to ensure that the objectives of the ventures in which investments are held are in the long-term interests of investors and other parties to the venture, that socially and environmentally responsible policies are pursued and the holding of these investments will provide a secure and profitable return for clients.
 

Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, the division within the Allianz Group responsible for asset management, has combined third-party assets of £399bn (as at 30 September 2003) and provides specialist active equity management through RCM.

RCM is a truly global asset management company with over 270 investment professionals worldwide and assets under management of £26.8bn as at 31 December 2003. RCM’s investment philosophy is based on fundamental research and aims to identify market anomalies in the pricing of assets/securities to produce performance for its clients over the longer term.

Allianz Dresdner Asset Management has offices in 27 countries worldwide, whilst RCM has its primary investment offices in London, Frankfurt, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney. The investment professionals (both fund managers and analysts) in each centre cover their local regional markets, but contribute to the overall global equity platform which drives our investment process. Thus the organisation functions as one global investment platform, using a coherent investment philosophy.

RCM’s SRI process is based on our partnership with the United Nations Association Trust (“UNA Trust”), the UK charitable and educational fund of the United Nations Association (UK). Encompassing global UN benchmarks for socially responsible standards of global business, these principles provide the underlying and pervasive philosophy that determines how our client SRI portfolios are put together, whereby:

“We approach SRI from a global perspective, believing that SRI criteria derived from internationally agreed United Nations principles provide the most comprehensive global benchmark against which to judge a company’s environmental and social performance.”

Focused equity and sector SRI analysis is undertaken by our in-house SRI unit to supplement the fundamental macro-economic and sectoral research conducted by our global team of analysts. This includes corporate engagement and governance, through the regular dialogue achieved as a result of the SRI research and selection process that feeds into our client SRI portfolios.

The research process focuses on understanding the ability of a business to:

• Manage its significant environmental and social, tangible and intangible assets,
• Respond to forthcoming policy and legislation,
• Respond to the concerns of investors and stakeholders, and
• Position itself competitively among its peers.
  In order to maintain this understanding, we endeavour to:
• Build upon constructive dialogue with companies on specific issues that may have an impact on the long-term sustainability of the business,
• Evaluate interested stakeholder views, and
• Assess business response to these.

By adopting a structured and focused research process, we aim to provide a Socially Responsible Investment process and funds that not only tackle Corporate Social Responsibility but also provide financial results for our investors.

Schroders' primary investment objective is to achieve optimal financial returns for our clients (within agreed risk parameters and constraints). Providing that this objective is not compromised in the process, we do, however believe that it is also possible to develop a framework that, in the interests of our clients, allows a broader range of considerations, including environmental and social issues to be taken into account when selecting investments. Indeed the idea that quality companies, operating at an environmentally and socially sustainable level, are more likely to survive and deliver long-term shareholder value suggests that the analysis and understanding of non-financial criteria will offer additional assistance in identifying the long term winners.

As well as integrating social, ethical and environmental considerations into the investment process Schroders has adopted an engagement approach to SRI. In that we aim to encourage companies to move towards best environmental and social practice in order to minimise the non-financial risks our investments may be exposed to. Globally, we also manage UK£3.1bn under ethical mandates on behalf of our charity, private and religious clients.
 

Sturgeon Ventures LLP is authorised and regulated by the FSA.  The firm is made up of 5 divisions; the Corporate Finance Division, the Investment Management Division, the Fund Capital Introduction division (set up January 09 focusing on sustainable investments), the Regulatory Incubation Division and the Compliance Consulting Division, often two divisions work together on certain projects. 

The group currently offers three ways to invest ethically. The Pension Ethical Fund is available through a variety of pension products and the Life Ethical Fund enables our investment bond customers to invest ethically. In addition, Standard Life Investments offers a UK Ethical Fund as part of its wide range of mutual funds.

All three of these funds exclude investments on the basis of negative criteria as stated in the Ethical Policy. This policy was developed based on research carried out with a large sample of IFAs and investors. We conduct research with our investors annually to confirm that the criteria continue to reflect their concerns. We use research from an independent research company to determine which companies comply with the requirements of the Ethical Policy. An Ethical Committee, comprised of senior managers from Standard Life and investors in the ethical funds, ensures the integrity of the Ethical Policy and provides assurance to investors that the process supporting this policy are robust.
 

At Threadneedle, we believe that well governed companies will outperform over time and that analysis of governance, social, ethical and environmental factors should be incorporated into stock selection as they have the potential to significantly impact returns. Consequently, visible management of the risks and opportunities presented by these factors is integral to our investment decision-making process.

Key to our approach is engagement and dialogue with the companies in which we invest. As active investors we regularly meet with management and board members to exercise our influence in a positive and responsible manner. This is an important relationship, providing us with deeper understanding of the financial and extra-financial aspects of the business and focusing the management of these companies on our expectations.