Sustainable Growth Fund Impact Report
2024Our fifth annual Sustainability and Impact Report for our Sustainable Growth Fund demonstrates the fund management approach during 2024. It evaluates the positive impact the fund has made through both capital allocation and our active engagement.
“We believe in the power of sustainable investment to meet our clients’ financial objectives while delivering positive outcomes for people and the planet. We are committed to demonstrating best practice and are delighted to be applying the "Sustainability Focus" label to these funds, in line with the FCA’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements regime.”
Emilie Shaw, Sustainable Solutions Lead
Making a difference through collective investment and engagement
We strongly believe that our decisions around capital allocation and how we use our influence with the companies and managers we invest in can bring about real change in the world. This year’s report details the progress we're making in both areas, underscoring how we’re achieving our dual sustainability objective of meeting our financial goals but also investing to create a positive outcome for people and planet.
See below for some of the report’s key highlights:
Investing for impact
We’re delighted that 33% of the portfolio is contributing to solutions by supporting the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as assessed under our internal methodology[1]. For more information on the impact created by the solutions we are allocating to, see pages 5 and 14-18 of the report. Please see the Important Information section below on how we’ve calculated the percentage of holdings contributing towards solutions[2].
We estimated that 75,094 people were reached through the provision of healthcare, education and financial services, and that 12,220 tonnes of carbon was saved, equivalent to 201,624 trees over ten years.
Over the course of the year the fund delivered a return of 7.8%, ahead of the inflation plus 4% target, which rose 6.6%, albeit marginally behind the peer group, as represented by the ARC Steady Growth PCI Index, return of 7.9%. To read more information about the fund’s financial performance, see page 3 of the report.
Please see Important Information below to understand how we’ve calculated our financial performance[3][4].
Using our influence
We are committed to using our influence to push for progress. We engage both directly with companies we invest in and with fund managers whose funds we invest through.
As at the end of last year we engaged with 19 of the 38 directly invested companies owned. And engaged with 14 of the 15 actively managed funds across equities, bonds, alternatives, and cash. Please see Important Information below to understand how we’ve calculated our engagement[5].
If you would like to read more about our engagement within the report, you can do so on pages 21- 23.
Annual sustainability and impact reports 2024
Read more about our estimated amalgamated impact achieved across all three of our sustainable flagship funds.
Contact us
To discuss your wealth management requirements, or to find out more about our services, please contact us below.
Important information
[1] Source: Cazenove Capital, Schroders and third-party fund managers of the underlying positions held in the fund, where data is available. SDG classifications alignment to one or more of the UN SDGs based on Cazenove Capitals proprietary assessment.
[2] Data shown reflects the notional aligned outcomes calculated for the positions held in the fund based on the value of assets as at the 31 December 2024. The positive outcomes are generated by the companies that we invest in and the users of their products and services, like the organisations that have helped improve access to healthcare, finance and education and the people who choose to switch to renewable energy. Investors in the SMAF are aligned with these outcomes by investing in a company’s activities generally but do not finance any particular activity, product or service that a company may undertake or make available. We use the most up to date underlying data available as reported by the companies and fund managers in which we invest to estimate these metrics, and apportion it according to our holding size. To illustrate the aggregated outcomes, we translate the outcomes into more meaningful comparisons using the following conversion ratios: over a decade, one tree captures and stores 60kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Source: EPA). Where data is not available estimates may be used. Metrics provided, in part by Net Purpose.
[3] Source: Cazenove Capital and Lipper. Data to 31st December 2024. Inception 1st March 2018. Fund performance is shown net of 0.50% management fee, underlying fund fees and trading costs. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of an investment and the income from it may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested. The above charts show the performance of the Cazenove GBP Sustainable Growth model portfolio shown as representative past performance for the GBP Sustainable Growth Fund prior to the launch of the fund on the 1st February 2021, followed by the performance of the fund after this date. The Cazenove GBP Sustainable Growth model is constructed in the same way as the GBP Sustainable Growth Fund. However, model performance may differ from the performance of the GBP Sustainable Growth Fund.
[4] ARC GBP Steady Growth PCI Index representing peers group returns.
[5] Engagements are coordinated by Schroders and Cazenove Capital. Engagement figures may be subject to revision given ongoing quality assurance processes and delayed logging of engagements.