Triodos Investment Management has launched a children’s wellbeing and development fund in support of UNICEF.
Triodos Future Generations Fund invests in 30-40 companies across five impact themes: health and wellbeing, education, equal opportunity, access to basic services, and safety.
Sjoerd Rozing, fund manager of Triodos Future Generations Fund, said: “Throughout history, we have always wished for our children and grandchildren to fare better than us: to become more prosperous, healthier, and better educated. What we see today is that the future of the current young generation is being put at risk.”
Triodos will donate 0.10% of the fund’s NAV per year to UNICEF to support programmes such as the Building bricks for the future project. This project addresses two major challenges in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa: waste management and education. One solution is transforming the plastic waste into bricks, which are then used to build classrooms. In addition, separate to the fund management, Triodos IM will work together with UNICEF aiming to amplify the voice of children and further their rights within the assets management world, building on UNICEF’s Tool for Investors on Integrating Children’s Rights into ESG Assessment.
Sandra Visscher, executive director at UNICEF in Luxembourg, said: “This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Children’s Rights and Business Principles, outlining the responsibilities of businesses and investors to respect children’s rights. Yet, while children account for nearly a third of the world’s population, investors’ human rights policies seldom reflect the special considerations businesses need to make to respect children’s rights. We hope that this collaboration will help to put children’s rights more clearly on the investor agenda and encourage integration of children’s rights into ESG decision-making processes across the investor world.”
