Our impact investment professionals seek to invest in companies and other issuers whose core products, services, or projects are tackling many of the world's biggest social and environmental problems. Their goal is to generate attractive financial returns alongside measurable, positive impact.
Our measured and disciplined approach
Our IMM Practice works closely with investment teams to measure and manage the social and environmental impact of companies’ products and services. This team helps design and implement IMM frameworks, assists with research, and collects and analyzes data.
Our engagements may include equity, fixed income, impact, and ESG perspectives. As a fiduciary of our clients’ capital, we believe it is our duty to understand the mosaic of a company’s or issuer’s business or financial model, industry structure, and capital allocation decisions.
The Impact Steering Group brings together key decision makers on Wellington’s impact strategies to promote knowledge sharing, accountability, and collaboration.
Opportunities in impact investing
We invest worldwide across three broad impact categories: Life essentials, Human empowerment, and Environment.
Not all funds may be invested in all themes at any one time. Please see our impact reports for details of the most recent fund holdings.
Meet our impact investing experts
Jason Goins
, CFA
Campe Goodman
, CFA
Oyin Oduya
, CFA
Insights
Three things I’m excited about in 2024
2023 was an eventful year for markets, with plenty of excitement, challenges and opportunities for fixed income investors. We believe our Global Impact Bond portfolio managers navigated them successfully.
Decoding impact expectations: best practices for impact investors and companies
We share three recommendations each for impact investors and companies to help them better understand and manage each other's expectations.
Why impact bonds make financial sense
We explore how impact bond investments can help deliver the dual benefits of attractive fixed income returns and material, additional and measurable impact.
Green horizons: How the shift toward sustainable finance may reshape fixed income markets
Three sustainability trends have the potential to reshape fixed income markets, leading to a range of new opportunities for investors.
More green shoots: Tracking trends in sustainable debt issuance
While growth in the sustainable debt market has been uneven, certain pockets offer substantial opportunities. Two of our fixed income investment professionals weigh in.
Activism – History and evolution in Japan
Investment Specialist Toshiki Izumi examines the history of shareholder activism in Japan, with particular emphasis on the differences between current and historical attitudes toward activism.
Blue bonds: long-awaited innovation or yet to make a splash?
Blue bonds – which aim to support projects related to ocean conservation – are on the rise. How effective are they and what do investors need to know before they invest?
How can impact investing help address the water scarcity challenge?
In acknowledgement of World Water Day, Louise Kooy-Henckel, Joy Perry and Paul Skinner highlight impact investing can help to address the world's water and sanitation crises.
Assessing the impact of climate resilience
Oyin Oduya and Louisa Boltz discuss the case for impact solutions focused on climate adaptation and share high-level guidelines to help overcome the associated measurement challenge.
Impact measurement and management practices
What constitutes an impact investment? How is impact measured? And, what are the benefits of impact investing? Our Impact Management and Measurement Practice Leader Oyin Oduya discusses our approach.
Focusing on value amid rising global challenges and opportunities
Our Sustainable Investing (SI) Research Team offers a high-level view of 2023 research and engagement priorities.
URL References
Related Insights
FAQS: Impact investing
Wellington’s impact investing team invests globally across three broad impact categories — Life essentials, Human empowerment, and Environment — which we then divide into 11 impact themes. Impact opportunities can represent innovative solutions across sectors, asset classes, and market capitalizations. All impact investments must meet our thresholds for materiality, additionality, and measurability. That is, companies must generate most of their revenue from products and services related to at least one of our impact themes; the impact they generate must have a low prospect of being achieved by other means; and we must be able to track and measure the impact. Once we determine whether a company meets our impact criteria, we add it to our opportunity set. In parallel, our fundamental analysis seeks to identify those investments with the most attractive long-term return potential.
Our impact investing research was established in 2012, starting as a study topic in Wellington’s Future Themes research initiative, a firmwide exercise and more than 40-year tradition aimed at uncovering emerging structural trends and ways to express them in client portfolios. We launched our first public-market equity impact strategy in September 2015 followed by our fixed income impact strategy in 2017.
Loosely speaking, impact refers to “what” a company or issuer does that may lead to positive social or environmental outcomes. ESG is more closely related to “how” a company operates and behaves. For example, business models for building affordable homes, providing health care to rural communities, or developing drought-resistant seeds are examples of impact. ESG includes things like how a company allocates capital, treats its employees or vendors, or manages its water usage or carbon emissions. While ESG is part of our impact investors’ security analysis, our impact “theory of change” is based on the core goods and services produced by the company.
Our Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) Practice works toward measuring impact as thoroughly as financial outcomes through in-depth research. This involves rigorous analysis of an investee’s contribution (both positive and negative) to social and environmental challenges before it is included in our investable universe and gathering and monitoring impact-related key performance indicators (KPIs) after an investment is made.
While we developed our impact themes independently of the SDGs, we believe there is significant overlap. For example, our Alternative energy theme aligns well with SDG Goal 7, "Affordable and Clean Energy.” Wellington’s impact investing team supports the 17 SDGs and believes the financial services industry has an integral role to play in bridging the funding gap to achieve them.
Explore other sustainable and ESG investing opportunities
Socially and environmentally positive themes underpinned by structural economic drivers are central to the investment philosophy in pursuit of value creation and/or risk management.
Seeks to invest in issuers that we believe contribute to a lower-carbon future, can help the world adapt to a changing climate, or are well positioned to manage transition and/or physical risks
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