2010 –
Building a 100% Impact Portfolio
Recognizing the severity and urgency of the global issues we face today, and that philanthropic capital alone is insufficient to solve the myriad of challenges we face, Annie and the team began applying our entire capital portfolio towards investing for a better world in 2010. Over 5 years, we gradually replaced traditional investment managers who were only driven by financial returns, with ESG and impact managers. We also sought out organizations whose work had catalytic impact on tackling some of the most complex sustainability challenges facing the world, and provided capacity building grant support.
The impetus behind building this 100% sustainably invested portfolio is our belief that we have a choice, and indeed a responsibility, to invest in a way that contributes to the well-being of society and the planet, while generating a financial return that meets our needs. We deploy our capital with full awareness of the possible range of direct and indirect value creation (or destruction) from our investments, not only as it affects ourselves, but the wider society and our planet.
2013
Climate Lens
Informed by the growing divest-invest movement, in 2013 we added an explicit lens on climate change mitigation and adaptation to our portfolio. As a result, we divested from all exposures to coal, oil exploration and production companies, and selectively investeds in natural gas companies (provided they have a strategy that supports the transition to a lower carbon economy). We also increased our allocation to targeted impact investments in energy efficiency and low carbon energy systems, and demanded our asset managers to better incorporate climate risks in their investment process and engagement activities. On the grant side, we increased our support to NGOs working on environmental and climate issues, as well as those working on investor advocacy initiatives around climate.
As a result,we were able to reduce the financial risk posed by “unburnable carbon” to our portfolio, and achieved a lower carbon footprint compared to benchmark.
2016
Launched Our Impact Report
In addition to investing our own capital sustainably, we also wanted to grow the community of impact investors in HK and Asia. We wanted to share our journey and encourage other investors to manage and deploy their capital sustainably.
With this in mind, we released our “RS Group Impact Report” in May 2016, sharing our five years’ (2010-15) journey and lessons learned from putting into practice our ideas and thinking on responsible capital management. We hope in sharing our story of building a Total Portfolio, we can inspire and empower others to embrace positive change through their own actions.
2016 – 19
Incubated and Launched SFi
Following the positive reception of our Impact Report, we realized a more comprehensive effort was required to build the sustainable investor community in the region. This drove us to incubate and launch a dedicated platform–the Sustainable Finance Initiative (SFi) (link text)–in 2018, to curate content, organize convenings and co-invest to build the private investor community in HK and around the region.
Today, SFi is an independent organization, whose mission is to mobilise private capital for positive impact in Hong Kong and Asia. By empowering family offices, private investors and financial services professionals with the knowledge and expertise to invest for purpose and profit, they are building the impact investment landscape in Asia.
2019 –
Climate Change and Nature-based Solutions (NbS)
A healthy planet underpins all life as well as human flourishing and yet climate finance accounts for only [3%] of philanthropic giving. We feel a deep sense of urgency with the climate crisis and ongoing breach of planetary boundaries (now 6 out of 9 being breached). In 2019, we decided to intensify our resources and efforts on climate change by stepping up our climate lens on our investment portfolio, do more strategic grant giving on climate and started our focus on Nature Based Solutions (NbS).
The NbS initiative focused on deploying catalytic capital into innovative nature based investment ventures and solutions that seeks to protect and restore natural ecosystems whilst developing a sustainable operating model. Our NbS initiatives so far includes designing and launching a USD3M Asia Natural Capital Design Funding Grant window with Convergence in 2019, providing feasibility and proof of concept grants to Asia based practitioners designing innovative nature based solutions and the incubation and launch of Terratai, Asia’s first nature venture builder in 2022, supporting early stage NbS ventures with financial and venture building support.