The UK asset management arm of Handelsbanken has launched four sustainable multi asset funds.
Heartwood Investment Management’s Defensive Sustainable, Cautious Sustainable, Balanced Sustainable, and Growth Sustainable funds will follow the same investment process as the company’s core total return funds.
“Our range of sustainable funds offer investors a different approach,” claimed Noland Carter, head of Heartwood Investment Management and the company’s chief investment officer.
“Unlike other strategies, our funds are truly multi asset, not just equities or bonds, and we provide solutions across the entire risk spectrum.
“We’re targeting positive outcomes across the whole of ESG – not just one theme – and by including ESG-integrated and impact investments rather than relying on negative screening, we can access a much broader investment universe.”
These funds will be co-managed by Ben Matthews and Matt Toms with the support of a wider investment team.
They will exclude businesses with significant revenues from exposure to tobacco, alcohol, weapons, pornography or gambling. These funds will also seek to incentivise companies and governments to improve their environmental footprints and their social and governance metrics.
The company said that these funds would seek to make “impact investments” that contribute to solving environmental and social problems and align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“Having successfully trialled these strategies for over three years, we’ve seen significant growth in demand across our entire investor base, and we expect this trend to continue,” said co-manager Ben Matthews.
“Our trial period revealed that our sustainable strategies achieved similar returns to our core strategies and so we are confident that investing sustainably does not compromise performance.”
