Australian Ethical Investment Limited

I'm Ali Selby and today we're very lucky to be speaking with John Woods.

He's the Deputy Chief Investment Officer and Head of Multi-Asset at Australian Ethical Investment.

John believes investors may no longer be diversified, even if they're invested across equities, bonds, infrastructure, property and alternatives.

So today we'll be diving into that conundrum and what it means for advisors.

The modern version kicked off in 1971 with the Pax World Fund, launched by two ministers protesting the Vietnam War who wouldn't touch weapons manufacturers, then gathered real momentum through the 1980s apartheid divestment movement.

The word ESG, or environmental, social and governance itself, didn't even exist until 2004. which means that Australian Ethical, founded all the way back in 1986, was already doing this for 18 years before anyone had given a name for it.

It gained momentum here over time.

And globally, there's roughly about $16.7 trillion sitting in sustainable investments.

And number one with a whopping 66% of people was animal cruelty.

So as we start to navigate this world of ethical investing, it really is about avoiding associating with businesses and organizations who are associated with these more harmful factors and directing your money to those in the world who want to do good.

Now, to help me unpack this fabulous topic, today I'm joined by Leah Willis, Head of Distribution at Australian Ethical.

Hi, Leah.

Have you got any specific examples you can share where applying this methodology and applying this approach is delivering results for marketers, the media and their agencies?

Well, for activity-based data in general, we've included a couple of case studies in the white paper, one from SBS and one from Australian Ethical.

both of which show that they can achieve quite considerable reduction in emissions at no impact to campaign performance and no extra costs.

I think they're both interesting in different ways because they both show the journey that the organisations are on.

But taking those steps is important.

So both of which show reduction in emissions.

The Australian ethical one I particularly like, they realised that out of home was their biggest brand contributor, but also biggest source of emissions.

So kind of performance at odds with each other, which felt like for a brand, especially like Australian Ethical, where it's really important, it felt like they were kind of hitting a bit of a brick wall where the two were at odds.

I think a really big part that you've just touched on there was about how voting for decisions and voting for people in power is a really low effort but high impact way to make a difference.

I know that there's also some reports that you've been involved in with UTS and Australian Ethical as well.

What are some other examples of low effort but high impact things that people can be doing to take action?

The one thing that I will always tell people to do as like their first step in is move your super to an ethical super fund.