PEOPLE who want to back projects that can help the UN achieve its sustainable development goals will be able to put their money to work through a new investment trust based in Scotland.
The Global Sustainability Investment Trust has been launched under an initiative led by sector veterans who reckon it could fill an important gap in the market.
The trust has been designed to help harness the wealth of the private sector to meet social goals such as ending poverty and reducing inequality while giving more people an opportunity to invest in support of those ambitions.
The initiative has been led by Douglas Armstrong, who is a partner at Edinburgh law firm Dickson Minto, and Andrew Dykes, a Swiss-based sustainability specialist who worked for fund managers in Scotland.
Mr Armstrong expects the trust will be able to tap in to strong demand from wealth managers and the like for investments that will allow people to support the sustainability agenda.
The trust will also be targeted at individuals in a way that champions reckon will democratise the financing of sustainable development goal projects. Mr Armstrong said it would allow men and women in the street to support the kind of impactful projects that might be associated in the public eye with tycoons such as Bill Gates.
The community interest company formed to develop the trust said the vehicle is expected to help investors to access exciting opportunities to deliver the 17 sustainable development goals.
“Many of these investment opportunities offer attractive long-term capital returns, but there have been limited options to access these investments, especially for individual investors,” it said.
The formal launch of the trust in Edinburgh at a forum hosted by Dickson Minto yesterday followed a development process that lasted around two years.
Mr Armstrong said the idea had won a strong response from institutions, charities and wealth managers.
He reckons the trust could raise £100m plus comfortably when it launches a share offer in the third quarter.
While there are funds that aim to support the sustainable development goals on the market, Mr Armstrong noted these focused on listed companies.
The Global Sustainability Investment Trust will be able to invest in other kinds of assets as well.
The process for selecting a manager for the trust is nearing completion, with five firms on the short list. The winner will be unveiled in the third quarter.
Mr Armstrong said there was a “pretty strong Scottish showing” on the short list.
“This was not by design but it is the case that there is strong multi-asset and sustainability expertise in Scotland,” he said.
Many early investment trusts were launched in Scotland and provided individuals with the opportunity to capitalise on developments in the global economy by investing in assets such as US rail roads.
The launch forum was addressed by experts including Iain Henderson, Head of International Cooperation at the UN Environment Inquiry.
“Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals is one of the defining challenges of our time,” said Mr Henderson. “We are seeing that investors representing trillions of dollars globally are interested in sustainability outcomes but are struggling with the associated complexity.”
Mr Henderson said the trust was innovative and showed how financial markets could be aligned with global sustainability aspirations.
Mr Dykes read economics at St Andrews University and went on to work for SVM and Martin Currie in Edinburgh before relocating to Switzerland.
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