How we create a better future for our investors

^{By: Sonja Saunderson, Chief Investment Officer at Momentum Investments}

As responsible investing continues to gain momentum and popularity, our Annual Stewardship Report shows how our own journey of responsible investing has progressed and how we more deeply integrate responsible investing in managing our clients’ money.

Our true-north and primary objective are to deliver returns for our clients. When doing this, we consider how we can drive purpose and take advantage of the investment opportunities to create a better future for our investors, their communities and society.

Responsible investment practices resonate directly with our outcome-based investing philosophy. They are completely aligned with our clients’ long-term goals to positively influence the world they will retire to. Responsible investing and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are important to our clients, and what is important to our clients is important to us. Because, with us, investing is personal.

During the last year, the prominence of climate change has accelerated, as it is undeniable how weather patterns are changing around the world and taking a significant toll on humanity. This is a pressing problem, and in the report, we discuss some of the real and practical steps of how we are addressing this priority within the context of the South African reality of massive social inequality.

We are acutely aware of the need to balance the future imperative of climate action with the present-day social challenges, as advocated by the Just Transition Statement, of which we are a supporter and signatory. To drive intention, our investment team has spent a considerable amount of effort understanding the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), selecting the ones we would like to focus on and interrogating how we can support these objectives in our portfolios.

Among these are a focus on sustainable and clean energy and driving climate action, which demonstrates practically how we align our broader purpose in our business. In this report, we focus on the alternative investment space with a case study of our developing infrastructure programme and how this drives real-world effect and focuses on our selected SDGs.

Talking to the realities of millions of South Africans, empowerment is an essential component of what we need to address as investors and a business. Our transformation plan addresses how we invest capital in broadening the economic opportunities in our country.

Closer to home, we launched our Phambili Internship Programme this year, which focuses on finding, developing and nurturing talent for the future. As a group, we have also launched the Isabelo Trust, where we broaden BEE ownership of our group by providing an ownership stake to all staff. This approach truly broadens the pattern of ownership in a way that goes to the heart of empowering and driving real change.

At Momentum Investments, we are inspired to deliver returns to our clients in a way that supports real and tangible responsible investment. This is a complex and evolving journey and one we are dedicated to.

Click the button below to read the annual Momentum Investments Stewardship Report 2021: