If it sounds a little over-ambitious to go global in one jump, we have been investing in global equities for our Sustainable World and Sustainable Diversified Trusts for over a decade.Diversity and challenge.
It may seem bold for the asset management arm of a UK insurance company to claim that it has a distinctly diverse and culturally open-minded investment philosophy.
However, while our offices aren’t geographically spread, we have worked hard over many years to create a genuinely open-minded investment process and diverse research resource.
Our investment inputs come from all parts of RLAM. Equally as importantly, we have worked hard over many years to develop a democratic and challenging research process, with the whole team’s opinions valued equally.
Our resources are notably diverse across gender, culture and nationality, bringing a far higher level of insight and open-mindedness.
It is hard to describe and even harder to prove, but I believe our performance to-date is largely attributable to this carefully-nurtured culture.
This is backed up by active engagement with our external and independent advisory committee, which comprises leading experts across different disciplines relevant to sustainability.
Again, it is made up of people from different backgrounds – this has broken down a lot of the inherent cultural bias that could otherwise have affected our investment thinking.
While advisory committees are relatively common for sustainable funds, we believe we have a far higher level of engagement with and challenge from ours.
I have learned so much from working with our committee and feel that I’m a far better fund manager as a result.
I’m also delighted that George Crowdy has recently joined RLAM to co-manage the Global Sustainable Equity Fund with me. George came from Janus Henderson, where he was a member of the Global Sustainable Equity team.
He will also play a key part in the ongoing rollout of our sustainable investment process.Constant and consistent.
So, there are real differences between the new RL Global Sustainable Equity Fund and our existing sustainable fund range.
Yet there are considerable similarities that we hope will be reassuring to existing clients.We haven’t changed our sustainable investing philosophy or our investment process.
We will continue to draw on the wider investment expertise at RLAM, as well as channelling the deep research resources, and allowing ourselves to be actively challenged by our external advisory committee.
We have the confidence, however, to apply these core skills and processes to a wider opportunity set to offer a truly global sustainable equity investment fund.
Find out more about Royal London Asset Management’s range of sustainable funds, including the newly-launched Royal London Global Sustainable Equity Fund, atrlam.co.uk/sustainable.
