Sustainable investing: The age of relevance for high net worth individuals

SUSTAINABLE investing commonly refers to a preference for investments that takes into consideration the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) impact. There is a fundamental case for ethical and sustainable investing that has been professed for several decades. International agencies, such as the World Bank, or private entities, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, are active in this area and have developed methods to understand and manage the broad impact of investments beyond purely financial results.

The basic principles of sustainable investing are to reject or to select companies based on a screening process before they are included in a portfolio. So-called "negative screening" excludes companies that are involved in non-ethical activities.

Positive selection refers to actively seeking companies that are engaged in businesses or activities that add value from the ESG perspective and that are also investable from a financial perspective, thanks to their innovative, entrepreneurial or managerial qualities.