T. Rowe Price Launched First Impact Fund
The new Global Impact Equity Fund is the American investment management organization’s first strategy allowing investors to pursue both financial gain and their environmental and social equity goals.
In March this year, T. Rowe Price launched the product allowing investors to pursue their financial goals and to have a positive impact on the global environment and social equity issues. The fund will rely upon the firm’s research platform as well as its responsible investing team to identify “compelling investment opportunities around the world”. It will initially be offered to US investors, but T. Rowe Price intends eventually to introduce the strategy to clients in other countries.
As stated, the firm’s Global Impact Equity Fund recognizes the significant, secular changes afoot in financial markets as many investors seek to marry these goals and as corporations, investors and other stakeholders increasingly appreciate the link between societal good and financial performance. The fund would employ an active management approach to seek companies that are on the right side of these changes.
According to the American publicly owned global investment management firm, the fund will seek out companies that can potentially provide excess returns over its benchmark, the MSCI All-Country World index. The intention is that it will focus on three pillars:
- Climate and resource impact
- Social equity and quality of life
- Sustainable innovation and productivity
It will exclude certain industries and companies that the manager believes do not conform to the fund’s impact mandate, such as fossil fuels, tobacco, gaming and for-profit prison companies. As underlined, the fund will be aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), a globally recognized framework designed to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet.
(Published in GLOBAL RECYCLING Magazine 2/2021, Page 5, Photo: ds_30 / pixabay.com)
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