Specialist asset management boutique KBI Global Investors (KBIGI) has confirmed its Revenue Alignment SDG Scores (RASS) for 2023, which it characterised as “overwhelmingly positive”. The scores represent the contribution companies held in KBI’s suite of natural resources equity strategies are making towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). RASS was introduced in 2017 in the absence of an agreed common approach to impact reporting or measurement. The research method involves identifying the various business activities of an investee company, classifying all revenue streams, and determining whether the activity from which those revenues arise is contributing positively or negatively to one or more SDGs. KBIGI argues it is one of few asset managers equipped with this type of capability. “Many companies still do not even attempt to report on the impact of their own operation, and for the companies that do, it has been nigh impossible to compare the results with those reported by other firms,” it said in a statement. The firm ‘natural resources’ investment strategies target “high-impact” companies creating solutions to the global shortages of clean water, energy and food, developing sustainable infrastructure, and supporting the transition to a circular economy. “We started investing in water and … the energy transition in the year 2000, so have seen the inherent source of alpha to be derived from sustainable investing over more than two decades,” said KBIGI Deputy CEO Geoff Blake. “Instead of an informed hunch that investments in these strategies contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, we can now quantify this using a replicable and transparent methodology – and provide our investors with the reassurance that their investments are contributing in a positive manner.”
