Ninety One, previously Investec Asset Management, has received regulatory approval in Singapore for its Global Environment Fund, which is open to retail investors and invests in companies that contribute to positive environmental change through sustainable decarbonisation.

The fund takes a bottom-up approach to invest in companies with structural growth, sustainable returns and competitive advantages in decarbonisation. All the companies in the fund are exposed to at least one of the three themes – renewable energy (e.g., solar energy), electrification (e.g., electric vehicles) and resource efficiency (e.g., energy efficient appliances), which are the key pathways to achieving a lower-carbon economy.

The companies held by the fund generate at least 50% of their revenues from the three pathways linked to decarbonisation and the fund favours companies operating in services, infrastructures, technologies and resources related to environmental sustainability.

The fund is managed by Deirdre Cooper and Graeme Baker, who have respectively over 15 and 10 years of experience in the clean technology, energy and environment sector. The investment team has direct experience of managing decarbonisation-focused strategies, and deep knowledge of the economic and investment implications of the energy transition.

“We have developed a proprietary screening methodology identifying companies that will benefit from moves towards decarbonisation based on environmental revenues and improving carbon data,” says Cooper, co-portfolio manager at Ninety One. “Combined with a detailed fundamental research process and our integrated ESG [envrionmental, social and governance] research methodology, the result is a highly concentrated portfolio that allows us to actively engage with every single company we invest in.”