A short introduction to Impax Asset Management

Speaker 0:
I think what makes impacts distinctive is our team. Our team is very passionate, very experienced. We have one of the largest investment teams globally dedicated to an expert in a sustainable economy.

Speaker 0:
I'm Ian Sam. I'm the founder and chief executive of Impacts Asset Management.

Speaker 0:
To me, success for impacts as a management means three things firstly, looking after our clients, making sure that they do get those excellent risk adjusted investment returns. Secondly, ensuring that our team works really effectively together on a collegial basis and individuals have fun and feel that their time impacts is personally rewarding. And thirdly, making a positive contribution to society to help improve policy

Speaker 0:
in this area to connect science and technology to financial markets and also, where possible, to help improve the social fabric in the communities in which we are based.

Speaker 0:
So I started Impacts Asset Management in 1998. So since then over 20 years ago, what we've done is we've built a business which works on the interface between institutional capital pension funds, private banks, insurance companies, et cetera, and the great investment opportunities linked to the transition to a more sustainable global economy.

Speaker 0:
Solving environmental problems improving resource efficiency and really just addressing the challenges that come from lots and lots of people on the planet with high levels of demand and consumption.

Speaker 1:
Financial sector's role is to look forward and anticipate changes in society. And sustainability definitely offers a lot of risks and opportunities that investors need to consider.

Speaker 1:
Our firm really focuses on investing in the risks and the opportunities associated with the transition to a more sustainable global economy. It will be absolutely necessary over the next few decades to transition from an economy fueled by coal and oil to an economy fueled by new technologies by energy efficiency by renewable energy sources. It will be vital that we transition from an economy that

Speaker 1:
is fundamentally depleted and generates a lot of waste to one that is more circular. It is also really imperative that we understand that this transition from an industrial age economy to a sustainable economy could potentially unleash the greatest period of economic growth in the history of the planet.

Speaker 0:
So for too long, capital markets have allocated capital. If you like to companies that are really paying no attention whatsoever to environmental or social problems, so impact his investment philosophy is that these companies are really, quite often very attractive for institutions because they are misunderstood.

Speaker 0:
So in addition to our pursuit of excellent risk adjusted financial returns, Impacts is also really looking out for additional data that we can aggregate and provide to our clients on non financial outcomes, particularly environmental impacts, that we've been gathering environmental in

Speaker 0:
back data since 2015 reporting on it on an annual basis. We also engage with many of the companies in which we're investing to build the long term dialogue as a critical friend to the management teams and boards of these companies and help them understand risk, opportunity and improve usually marginal changes, not wholesale changes. Because we're not activist investors,

Speaker 0:
we're also active in the policy debate. So we do believe quite strongly that the transition to a more sustainable economy will be accelerated if appropriate policies emerge quickly Regulations, market structures, et cetera. So we do pay quite a lot of attention to that

Speaker 0:
and finally we're interested and passionate about the role of science and technology in the transition to a more sustainable economy. So we do have close relationships with scientific groups that are trying to build a bridge into the finance sector. So, for example, the the scientific basis for climate change risk or really unpacking what biodiversity risk means for investors using science as an input into that

Speaker 0:
over the next 10 years, I expect us to become much more sophisticated in understanding the shape of physical risk, how that might affect our investments and how we might engage with the companies or the municipalities or other establishments that we invest in and how to make themselves more resilient. And I think there will be a lot more diligence, you know, sort of devoted to OK, well, how do we get resilient?

Speaker 0:
The transition to a more sustainable global economy is going to play out over at least a couple of decades. And so there's a great opportunity for impacts to do more of what we've been doing for the last two decades, and that's really looking for these fantastic investment opportunities on behalf of our clients. So I'm really excited about the future