Sustainability Investments
Our Foundation has made three Sustainability Investments (SUIs) as of January 2008: Generation Fund, Neuberger Berman SRI, and Zouk Ventures - Clean Tech Europe. The market is currently seeing a lot of action in this space and we expect to add more SUIs to our portfolio as opportunities present themselves and as long as they fit into our asset allocation.
Generation Fund
Generation is an independent, private, employee-owned partnership dedicated to the principles of long-term investing, integrated sustainability research and client alignment. Using a very rigorous evaluation process, Generation focuses on high quality businesses and management teams for their investment portfolio. Their sustainability research focuses on long-term environmental, social and governance challenges, breaking down the complexity of these issues and integrating this research into their investment process.
Generation's holistic approach to vetting their investments is aligned with the way we think about sustainability. We applaud their willingness to attempt to dissect the complexity of global challenges - Climate Change, Pandemics, Real Needs at the Base of the Economic Pyramid, Real Needs at the Peak of the Economic Pyramid, and Water - by applying a fresh research lens. This investment aligns well with the values of our Foundation and our Sustainability Policy.
Neuberger Berman SRI
Neuberger Berman's Socially Responsible Investing Fund's objective is "to deliver a consistent and superior risk adjusted portfolio returns, while reflecting the social priorities of our clients." They believe that, "doing good and doing well are not mutually exclusive." Using both leadership and avoidance, Neuberger Berman provides a product that can be customized for their clients based on key social criteria - environment, workplace, community and avoidance criteria.
We invested in Neuberger Berman because they pioneered SRI's, have an in-house staff dedicated to ensuring adherence to social policy, have uniquely integrate their social and investment research, and combine leadership and avoidance criteria rather than simply using a negative screen.
Zouk Ventures – Cleantech Europe
Zouk Ventures is a UK Limited Partnership. The Zouk Ventures - Cleantech Europe fund is an expansion stage fund focused exclusively on the European clean technology market. Their main investment areas are: water technology, renewable energy techonology, energy storage technologies, and efficiency technologies.
We invested in the Zouk Ventures - Cleantech Europe fund because of their focus on expansion stage funding, European firms, and technology.
