Investing in the transition to a sustainable future with an innovative approach
Positive Change
We seek to invest in companies where the value of transitioning to a more sustainable future has not yet been fully appreciated. We believe improving alignment with the UN SDGs is a source of alpha, leading to improved returns and the potential for re-rating over the long term.
We actively engage with selected companies to accelerate their alignment with the UN SDGs, where we believe this transition will lead to rising demand for their products and services.
We define Positive Change as the improvement in alignment of a company’s products and services to the UN SDGs.
What makes this strategy different?
Recognises that sustainability is a whole economy issue
The strategy can invest across all sectors. We believe that sustainability cannot be fully addressed by investing only within positively aligned sectors. We need to continue to invest in old economy sectors such as oil and gas, but responsibly.
Harnesses AI to profile companies more efficiently
Our proprietary SDG Alignment Indicator uses AI to assess alignment of company products and services to the UN SDGs based on Natural Language Processing (NLP). The outputs of the tool inform our active, bottom-up investment process. The end result is a diversified portfolio of 35-50 stocks.
Aims to accelerate the transition through focused engagement
Engaging with a select number of companies ensures that we have the capacity and resources to drive real change.
Transparency is at the core of our approach
We track our progress against stock specific KPIs and disclose this to our investors via our Holdings Update reports.
A long history of responsible investing
Pictet Asset Management launched our first strategies incorporating responsible investment criteria in the 1990s. Around 80 per centPlease note that the assets stated include all assets which are either managed or distributed by Pictet Asset Management excluding mandates, and which are in scope for SFDR. For methodological reasons, AUM figures shown above may differ from those shown in other marketing material on Pictet Asset Management. Source: Pictet Asset Management, 31.12.2022 of our AUM now invests in strategies that promote environmental or social characteristics, or have a sustainable investment objective such as providing solutions to climate change or water scarcity.
We classify our holdings as:
| Leaders | Improvers | Opportunities |
|---|---|---|
Leaders are companies that are at the peak of their sector in terms of alignment of their products and services to the UN SDGs. | Improvers are companies that may have lower alignment to the UN SDGs in their sector but which are showing signs of improvement. | Opportunities are companies that may have lower alignment to the UN SDGs in their sector but where we have identified the potential, ability and willingness to improve alignment with our targeted engagement.
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We can, and do, engage with Leaders and Improvers; however, we expect engagement with Opportunity companies to be of a higher intensity and potentially with longer time horizons.
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Accelerating the transition to Positive Change
Read moreVisit our interactive cityscape to find out how the companies we invest in are driving Positive Change
Our investment team
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Evgenia Molotova
Senior Investment Manager
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Yuko Takano
Senior Investment Manager
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Peter Rawlence
Senior Investment Manager
