Invest with your values
We believe the strategic deployment of private capital can help address the global social, economic, and environmental challenges we face today.
Toward this goal, we strongly support our clients' desires to invest according to their environmental and social values.
We are proud of our time-tested strategies in social investing.
What does it mean to invest with your values?
Increasingly, investors are choosing to incorporate their values into their investment strategies – a “putting your money where your mouth is” approach.
Socially responsible investing integrates Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into the investment process. Within this broad framework, there are many sub-factors incorporated into the development of an ESG score for a company, like climate change, empowerment, basic needs, governance, and natural capital (i.e. responsible consumption and production).
At CenterPoint, we have specialized in providing ESG investing for over twenty years. Investors do not need to give up performance in order to pursue ESG investing. Our well-diversified model portfolios are designed to deliver solid risk-adjusted performance across different market cycles.
The Evolution of Social Investing
In recent years, a desire for social investing has grown among both institutional and retail investors. However, the practice of social investing began in the 1960s with investors excluding stocks or entire industries from their portfolios based on religious factors, business activities such as tobacco production, or involvement in the South African apartheid regime.
Today, ethical considerations remain common motivations for many investors, however there are new risk factors to consider with prevalent global sustainability challenges at hand, like flood risk and sea level rise, privacy and data security, demographic shifts, and regulatory pressures.
Based on our extensive experience and research in the management of socially screened portfolios, we know that conventionally invested portfolios and socially screened portfolios will perform differently in certain market environments. Our socially screened model portfolios are designed to take advantage of opportunities while also mitigating risk in a different market environments.
Invest for the double bottom line
The development of the industry has produced many nomenclatures – Social Investing, Socially Responsible Investing, Impact Investing, ESG Investing – all terms used to classify the practice of investing with our values to meet the double bottom line returns for both financial goals and personal values for our planet and our communities. Though the essence of each practice is the same across the industry, each term refers to a different approach.
Sustainable, socially responsible, and ethical investing are strategies that avoid putting money into companies with a negative impact on society or the environment. Impact investing also takes social and environmental effects into consideration, but employs a positive screen in addition to a negative screen approach. Impact investors actively want their money to promote a positive social and/or environmental return and will continue their alliance with a company for their pursuit of a positive impact even if the goals have not yet been attained.
Tools and Resources
The process and practice of socially screened investing involves examining companies on an operational level and asking questions like: do they take steps to improve their energy efficiency, do they hire a diverse workforce, do they maintain a good work environment and foster employee satisfaction and productivity. The adage remains true: doing good business is good for business.
There are many industry tools and research to help formulate best practices in developing optimal socially screened model portfolios. Some of our resources include:
If you would like to learn more about opportunities to invest with your values, please contact us.
We look forward to hearing from you!