Our Method

When it comes to investing your funds, we follow a disciplined path that we believe produces the best chance for excellent returns, lower volatility, reduced carbon risk, and an environmentally sustainable portfolio that you can be proud of.

Guiding Principles

Our investment process is predicated on three guiding principles. First, we only focus on ESGC Investing™ and do not accept engagements that are outside of the scope of this methodology. It is our firmly held belief that ESGC Investing™ is the most effective and responsible manner in which to place investment funds of our clients.

Second, we focus on Absolute Return investing. This means that we are not judged as investment managers in relation to a benchmark index or in a Relative Return manner. Instead, we target a positive return to our clients each year of 8.00% after management fees. The reason is simple. An absolute return focus allows our firm the flexibility to do what is necessary to achieve our target return. If we have to move the portfolio entirely into cash or bonds we will do so. The problem with relative return investing comes when returns are negative. For instance, a manager may beat his benchmark index by 2.00%. However, if the index was down 10.00% it means that the client still lost 8.00%. You cannot eat relative returns that are negative. An Absolute Return focus is a constant reminder that we have work to do.

Third, we do not ascribe to a value, growth, or other limiting investment style. Instead, we use a Margin of Safety and Common Sense approach. We will use any investment vehicle to express our investment thesis, in any market, in any country. We use technical indicators combined with fundamental research.

General ESGC Investing™ Framework

Step One: Establish ESGC Investing™ Securities Universe

The first step we follow in our process is establishing a universe of securities that we may invest in on behalf of our clients. We follow numerous sustainability indexes and use our own proprietary ESGC Investing™ methodology to establish a universe of securities that we can invest in. This universe is added to or reduced depending on how the investments continue to meet our criteria.

Our universe is global and to the extent that we can purchase desirable investments anywhere in the world, we will do so for the benefit of our clients. While we mainly deal with North American investments, we are always looking internationally for opportunities as well.

We do not include any firm that has alcohol, tobacco, or military goods as their major business line or as a major subsidiary.

Step Two: Apply Financial Investment Screens

The next step is to apply our financial investment screens to the universe to find investments that we believe will outperform in the medium to long term. These screens look at developments in the nation where the firm is located, financial performance, foreign exchange outlook, and our opinion of the industry fundamentals the firm is a part of.

Step Three: Select Investments That Meet Criteria

As a result of our screens we will be left with a list of investments we believe will be attractive enough to invest in. This list will change over time as the fortunes of the companies change and as the world economy evolves. Typically, we will maintain the list at no more than 100 potential candidates.

Importantly, we want our investors to know that at times there may be NO investments that meet our criteria and when that occurs we will be invested in cash or short term bonds to preserve capital. We do not follow fads or manias.

Step Four: Determine Entry and Potential Exit Points

Once we have established the list in step three, we then apply technical based screens to determine potential entry and exit points. In addition to entry and exit points, we also determine position sizing and use an expectancy based model for overall portfolio management.

Step Five: Monitor Investments and Repeat

Once we have made an investment we monitor it consistently. On a regular basis it will be put through the four steps above and if at any time it does not meet our criteria we will replace it with investments that do.