Making small changes to the way you spend and invest your money could have a far bigger impact than you realise. For example, did you know that making your pension green is 21x more powerful than giving up flying, going veggie and switching energy provider? *

*Source: makemymoneymatter.co.uk.

Make My Money Matter is a people-powered campaign fighting for a world where we all know where our pension money goes. You can watch a video about the impact of greener pensions here

I work with a number of investment managers, many of whom are award winning leaders in their field of specialism. 

Depending on your preferences, and what “shade of green” you are, I will either recommend a multi asset fund that applies the appropriate exclusions or follows a particular theme, or I may recommend the use of a model portfolio. 

A model portfolio is a collection of funds and/or direct holdings that will include all types of assets (equities, fixed income (bonds), property, commodities and alternatives) that are put together by expert fund managers to provide a diversified portfolio. The collection should adhere to certain parameters be these based on responsibility (for example well governed and well intended companies), sustainability (environmentally positive and regenerative companies), or positive impact (companies whose main product or service exists intentionally to solve a global issue, such as one of the UN SDGs.)

The type of companies you might find in an Impact Portfolio are: 

• Companies supplying important component parts to the clean energy sector i.e. wind and solar farms. 
• Pharmaceutical, biotech or life science firms who are working at the cutting edge to find preventions, cures or develop therapeutic treatments for global health problems such a diabetes, Alzheimers, cancer or malaria. 
• Technology providers who are discovering new ways to sanitise water supplies or recycle products, food, or other waste. 
• Agritech businesses seeking to maximise crop yields, particularly in less fertile parts of the world. 
• Education providers using innovative technology to reach parts of the world with lesser education opportunities than in the developed world. 

Quite simply these companies are working to improve and sustain the lives of humans, animals and the planet. 

As many of these companies will be innovating to discover something new, they are sometimes deemed to be more risky than conventional well established enterprises, but by including them within a diversified risk rated portfolio, the overall risk of your investments will be aligned to your attitude to investment risk.

Fixed Income (Bonds) is s growing area for impact portfolios with NGOs and Governments issuing bonds that return a fixed level of return and use capital raised for many positive causes, including the conservation of endangered species such as Rhinos, or the construction of large infrastructure assets.