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Funds Group: Baywood Funds
Management Company: SKBA Capital Management, LLC
Funds Affected: Baywood Socially Responsible Fund
Sustainable Investing Strategy: ESG Integration, Exclusions
Summary:
In selecting investments, the advisor considers social criteria such as an issuer’s community relations, corporate governance, employee diversity, employee relations, environmental impact and sustainability, human rights record, and product safety. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, the advisor also evaluates an issuer’s involvement in specific revenue generating activities to determine whether the issuer’s involvement was meaningful or simply incidental with respect to that activity.

The fund seeks to avoid investing in any issuer that derives more than 5% of its total revenue from tobacco, alcohol, gambling, abortion or weaponry (whether sold to consumers or the military), or that is involved in nuclear power. Because information on an issuer’s involvement in those activities may not be publicly available, it is possible that the fund’s holdings may include an issuer that does not meet its criteria for socially responsible investing. When the advisor discovers that a holding does not meet its criteria for socially responsible investing, it will divest that holding as soon as reasonably practicable.

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Research

Research and analysis to keep sustainable investors up to-date on a broad range of topics that include trends and developments in sustainable investing and sustainable finance, regulatory updates, performance results and considerations, investing through index funds and actively managed portfolios, asset allocation updates, expenses, ESG ratings and data, company and product news, green, social and sustainable bonds, green bond funds as well as reporting and disclosure practices, to name just a few.

A continuously updated Funds Directory is also available to investors.  This is intended to become a comprehensive listing of sustainable mutual funds, ETFs and other investment products along with a description of their sustainable investing approaches as set out in fund prospectuses and related regulatory filings.

Getting started

Many questions have surfaced in recent years regarding sustainable and ESG investing.  Here, investors and financial intermediaries will find materials that describe the various approaches to sustainable investing and their implementation.  While sustainable investing approaches vary and they have thus far defied universally accepted definitions, many practitioners agree that they fall into the following broad categories:  Values-based investing, investing via exclusions, impact investing, thematic investments and ESG integration.  In conjunction with each of these approaches, investors may also adopt various issuer engagement procedures and proxy voting practices.  That said, sustainable investing approaches will continue to evolve.

In addition to periodic updates regarding sustainable investing and how this form of investing is evolving, investors and financial intermediaries interested in implementing a sustainable investing approach will also find source materials that cover basic investing themes as well as asset allocation tactics.

Inesting ideas

Thoughts and ideas targeting sustainable investing strategies executed through various registered and non-registered sustainable investment funds and products such as mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs), closed-end funds, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Unit Investment Trusts (UITs). Coverage extends to investment management firms as well as fund groups. 

Independent source for sustainable investment management company research, analysis, opinions and sustainable fund disclosure assessments