ebi Portfolios - Vantage Earth, Vantage Core ESG, Vantage SRI, Vantage Impact, Vantage DFA Sustainability

Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG Policy:

Vantage Earth: The suite incorporates exclusionary ESG screening applied at the underlying fund level to filter the investable market for securities that meet minimum requirements related to vice products, controversial weapons, military contracting, company conduct and controversies, non-renewable energy, UN Global Compact Principles, and carbon targets.

Vantage Core ESG:  The suite incorporates exclusionary ESG screening applied at the underlying fund level to exclude companies involved in certain product types, severe business controversies, and companies out of compliance with the UN Global Compact.

Vantage SRI: The suite incorporates exclusionary ESG screening applied at the underlying fund level to exclude companies involved in certain product types, severe business controversies, and companies out of compliance with the UN Global Compact. Additionally, the equity portfolio employs best-in-class screening, tilting towards companies that have high ESG ratings relative to their sector peers, to ensure the inclusion of best-in-class companies from an ESG perspective. The equity funds also meet the EU Paris-Aligned Benchmark (PAB) regulation minimum requirements.

Vantage Impact: The Impact portfolio aims to generate positive, measurable, and sustainable social and environmental change, alongside financial return. The equity portfolio invests across a range of sectors, countries, and impact themes, and is aligned to the EU taxonomy on sustainable activities. The bond portfolio invests across around 800 global green bond issues, focused on climate and environmental sustainability activities.

Vantage DFA Sustainability: The Dimensional Sustainability Wealth suite is designed for investors who seek to both engage in utilising market factors and incorporate ESG considerations. The sustainability suite is broadly diversified across the global market, and employs filters to align sustainability values with investment goals, focusing on scientific drivers of climate change. Adverse business activity screens are focused on Environmental (coal, factory farming, and palm oil) and Social factors (adult entertainment, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, private prisons, civilian firearms, and controversial/nuclear weapons). Adverse business conduct screens are focused on the environment, child labour, human rights, corruption, and fraud controversies.

Process:

ebi incorporate ESG considerations into our investment analysis and fund selection for all of our sustainability-focused portfolio suites. ebi isn’t directly involved in the security selection and as such we don’t actively employ rules for positive or negative screening. Rather, as outlined below, the underlying fund investment managers themselves develop and enact their own rules for security selection and weighting.

We select fund managers and funds that we determine, through rigorous research, to have strong ESG and sustainability credentials. We believe that ESG is an important element of the investment decision making process, however that it should be considered alongside a range of wider factors, historic risk and return characteristics, manager experience and track record, and fund features and innovation, when selecting funds for inclusion within our portfolios.

There are three broad levels at which ESG is incorporated into our sustainability-focused portfolios, which are as follows:

Level One - ebi selects funds suitable for inclusion within our portfolio suites. A high-level summary of this process is as follows:

1. Research the investment universe;
2. Identify funds that aim to capture returns of an asset class for which we wish to gain exposure. Ensure funds track suitable indices and are managed in line with our evidence-based investment philosophy as appropriate;
3. Engage with the fund management company and assess how ESG has been incorporated into the fund investment process;
4. Review ESG data and assess the ESG characteristics of funds using Sustainalytics (Morningstar), and MSCI ESG ratings data via Style Analytics;
5. Identify risks/opportunities that ESG screening may pose.

Level Two – Managers of the funds held within our sustainability-focused portfolio suites incorporate ESG considerations into their fund security selection and portfolio construction. The fund managers utilised within ebi’s sustainability-focused portfolio suites have dedicated ESG specialists focused on analysing the environmental, social and governance factors of the underlying securities that they invest in. The managers typically have proprietary software or utilise third party software to score/rank underlying investments.

Level Three – Once the underlying fund managers have been chosen, we complete an overall assessment of the portfolio as there may be slight differences in the screening process adopted by each manager. We utilise Sustainalytics/Morningstar Direct to analyse the overall portfolio to suitable comparators, and assess a range of ESG metrics such as, Product Involvement, Carbon Involvement, ESG Risk and Carbon Intensity.

Resources, Affiliations & Corporate Strategies:

ebi’s ESG responsibilities are managed by the Investment Team as a whole, which is made up of the following individuals:

• Craig Burgess: CEO and CIO
• Jonathan Griffiths, CFA: Investment Product Manager
• Joshua Clarke, CFA, CIPM: Portfolio Manager
• Chris Johnston: Data Analyst
• Sam Startup: Investment Analyst
• Jonathan Simpson: Investment Support Analyst (part time basis)

Two of the senior members of the Investment Team (Joshua Clarke, CFA, CIPM - Portfolio Manager, and Jonathan Griffiths, CFA - Investment Product Manager) are highly experienced sustainable investment professionals, with each of them holding both the CFA Institute Certificate in ESG Investing and the CFA UK Certificate in Climate and Investing, and Jonathan also holding the CFA UK Certificate in Impact Investing.

For inhouse ESG-related research, the team primarily use Morningstar Direct (including Sustainalytics) and Style Analytics.

At the firm level, ebi strives to continue to uphold its commitment to responsible investing, including upholding our obligations as a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).

We are dedicated to running a sustainability-focused business, including full carbon offsetting of operations, and a promotion of internal culture around sustainability. In 2023 we were excited to announce that we achieved our B Corp certification, joining a community of like-minded companies in transforming the global economy into a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative system.

SDR Labelling:

Not eligible to use label (out of scope)