AXA Investment Managers has launched a fund investing in firms mitigating biodiversity loss.
The AXA WF ACT Biodiversity Fund, managed by Amanda O’Toole (pictured), said the portfolio will consist of companies offering solutions to address issues such as pollution on land and water, land degradation, fauna and flora protection, and overconsumption.
AXA has partnered with Iceberg Data Lab, to develop a biodiversity measurement tool, which is utilised by the new strategy. It will deliver science-based metrics that identify the most harmful and material impacts of companies on a bottom-up basis, and calculates the environmental impact of companies throughout their value chain and supply chain to end use. The AXA team will be able to measure how the portfolio impacts biodiversity, and will use the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint, a metric which quantifies the impact of a company across all of their activities.
The team has identified four key investment areas that contribute to the preservation or restoration of biodiversity:
- Sustainable materials
- Land and animal preservation
- Water ecosystems
- Recycling and reduction
O’Toole commented: “Our planet’s biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate, threatening the planet’s future, and human economic activity is the main driver. There is growing recognition that there are economic and human costs associated with biodiversity loss – over time these negative externalities will crystalise as economic costs for companies. AXA IM’s biodiversity strategy identifies and invests in companies that contribute to ecosystem preservation and restoration through their products and services.”
