Sustainable
Building a movement: why WHEB Asset Management is becoming a Future-Fit Pioneer
By Seb Beloe
WHEB's reasons for joining the Future-Fit Pioneers network and what the Future-Fit Business Benchmark will require of the firm.
For anyone who has yet to watch Derek Sivers’ TED talk on ‘how to start a movement’, I highly recommend it.¹ A lone dancer at a music festival dances on a hill, seemingly oblivious to the sardonic glances of fellow festival goers. Before long though, the lone dancer has become a leader at the heart of a whirling mass of ecstatic dancers. As Mr. Sivers points out in his presentation, ‘a leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed.’
I don’t know whether the Future-Fit Foundation or the Future-Fit Pioneers network will be ridiculed. It wouldn’t surprise me if we were. The network is highly ambitious, seeking nothing less than the complete transformation of the way businesses operate. So yes, the ambition behind the Future-Fit Pioneers group is absurdly grand.
But it is also apparent that there is little alternative. The accelerating destruction of the biosphere on which we all depend, and an increasingly fractious and divided polity clearly point to business as usual being fundamentally broken. We need to ‘reset capitalism’ as the Financial Times has put it.² If anything, the coronavirus pandemic has served to underline the importance of this ‘reset’.
At the core of the Future-Fit philosophy is the recognition that sustainability is fundamentally the property of a system and not of an individual business. The destination of ‘sustainable development’ requires the whole global economy to change, not just individual businesses. Future-Fit Pioneersare committed to becoming businesses that deliver their core purpose in a way that does not cause any harm to the planet or society. We will also assist other businesses on their own journey, ‘acting as a guide and rallying call for all businesses to join this movement’.³
This commitment stretches way beyond incremental improvements in our environmental and social performance. As Pioneers, we will be using the Future-Fit Business Benchmark to guide our business decision-making. Along with other like-minded businesses and investors, we hope to demonstrate how business can be a force for good in transforming our entire economic system. As part of this commitment, we will also be using the Benchmark to assess our performance and report annually on our progress.
At our launch on the 17th November 2020, the Pioneer Network members included just 21 companies across 14 sectors.⁴ We are confident though that this number will grow. Over the next few years, we aim to become a real movement for change. We are convinced that, in time, those companies that have not committed to being part of a sustainable future will be the ones that will be derided.
¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFt1BZiMTw
² https://www.ft.com/video/0dae2a4a-8c5c-4718-a540-b1fefae10dc4
³ Future-Fit Pioneer – Terms of Reference, Future-Fit Foundation
Risk: The WHEB Environmental Impact Fund, the WHEB Sustainable Impact Fund and the FP WHEB Sustainability Impact Fund are Equity funds. Investors should be willing and able to assume the risks of equity investing. The value of an investment and the income from it can fall as well as rise as a result of market and currency movement; you may not get back the amount originally invested. The Funds are actively managed with the MSCI World used as a comparator benchmark only.
This is marketing communication. Please refer to the prospectus, supplement and KIID/KID for the funds, which contain full information on the risks and detailed information on their characteristics and objectives, before making any final investment decisions.
Disclaimer: This insight may provide information about Fund portfolios, including recent activity and performance and may contain facts relating to equity markets and our own interpretation. Any investment decision should take account of the subjectivity of the comments contained in this insight. This insight is provided for information only and all the information contained in it is believed to be reliable but may be inaccurate or incomplete; any opinions stated are honestly held at the time of writing but are not guaranteed. The contents of this insight should not therefore be relied upon. It should not be taken as a recommendation to make an investment in the Funds or to buy or sell individual securities, nor does it constitute an offer for sale.
