Three sustainability themes and case studies for responsible investors, June 2023

Our guest this week is Harry Waight, portfolio manager on the CT Responsible Global Equity fund, who walks us through a number of case studies to illustrate themes within the portfolio.

Harry starts by explaining a key differentiator in this fund: the huge amount of company engagement the management team undertakes. He gives the case study of AstraZeneca, which recently completed the Workforce Disclosure Initiative, and how the managers of this fund were part of the process.

He then moves on to the environmental screening on the strategy, which doesn’t only screen out bad companies but also looks for companies that are coming up with climate solutions.

One example in this area of the portfolio is Schneider, the leader in energy management and automation solutions. Sticking with automation, Harry identifies two key challenges he believes the world is experiencing at the moment — supply chain fragility and the looming demographic crisis — both of which, could potentially be solved through automation. We consider each challenge in turn and how the growth in automation could be a solution for the future. The example of a Japanese automation company illustrates the potential in the sector.

We finish, as all good British interviews should, by discussing the weather. Harry gives examples of two companies looking to solve climate issues: Schneider, which is looking to reduce CO2 emissions, and Xylem, the water company that in 2021, prevented 500 billion gallons of polluted water from flooding into communities.