CCF chose six of the best, through rigorous assessment, and now clients can donate to these not-for-profits through the Global Returns Project. The chosen charities are currently Ashden, Client Earth, Global Canopy, Rainforest Trust, Trillion Trees and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. This is what CCF calls “reinvesting in earth”.
Mr Swiderski says: “We believe there is an opportunity for wealth managers, advisers, banks and other financial institutions to take significant action by enabling their clients to support these not-for-profit climate solutions in an easy way.”
This can be done very simply. He continues: “If everyone with savings and investments, was given the option by their IFA to tick a box every year to automatically give a tiny proportion of their money to solve some of these problems, then a good number of people would do that.
“Behavioural research tells us that if this choice is presented to us in that context, so that it is a normal and easy thing to do, then many of us will participate and choose to reinvest in earth,” Mr Swiderski adds.
This is how it is in the best long-term interest of clients, and how they can stay ahead of developments in ESG. The charities selected by the Global Returns Project provide a function that market mechanisms can never achieve.
Building a more sustainable world
While the market tends to deplete natural resources and exploit the environment, the selected charities in the Global Returns Fund use natural processes to build a more sustainable world.
They go hand in hand with a switch to ESG investing, but make ESG funds even more effective, adding an additional layer of protection around them.
Mr Swiderski calls this enhancement of ESG funds “symbiotic wealth management”. Whereas ESG investments help negate risk, and counter environmental degeneration, symbiotic wealth management is about investing in ESG and then donating a tiny percentage of those savings to protecting and enhancing those ESG investments.
Because CCF is a registered charity, there is virtually no cost to the adviser. All transaction charges are absorbed by the CCF, so 100 per cent of the money sent when people reinvest in earth goes to their charity partners
“Investing in these projects delivers real identifiable returns. The returns are externalised and global, but they are real,” he says.
“Decarbonising the economy is not enough. We have to invest in natural systems that drawdown CO2, every day of every year.
“In symbiotic wealth management, the sustainable portfolio generates returns, and a portion of that can be used for the not-for-profit allocation, and the not-for-profit allocation in turn protects and enhances the entire biosphere to make all our lives and activities sustainable. If we can address these crises, then all investments become less risky.”
