Sustainable Investing
Every day, wealthy investors make spending, philanthropic and even career decisions to help make the world a better place. But when it comes to investing, are portfolios aligned to personal values?
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Return on values
For our latest UBS Investor Watch, we surveyed more than 5,300 investors in 10 countries on sustainable investing. Explore our report and discover the key findings.
What is sustainable investing?
Sustainable investing is another way of investing that aims to give you strong returns while staying true to your values. Unlike traditional investing, sustainable investing focuses on doing good in the world. You also don't miss out on the returns you might expect from traditional investments. In fact, you could get attractive returns – and evidence backs this up1 2.
Three main ways to invest sustainably:
What difference can I make?
There are many ways you can do good for your finances and the world when you invest sustainably.
What your investments achieve depends on how you invest, such as whether you choose the exclusions, ESG integration or impact investing approaches. For example, ESG integration looks at improving your portfolio’s risk and return while matching your investments to your values. Meanwhile, impact investing aims to make sure every investment achieves a measurable and verifiable impact.
What can it do for my money?
Think investing sustainably means missing out on growing your money? Think again. Evidence shows sustainable investment returns are comparable to what you can expect from conventional ones1 2. For example, a review of academic research found that investing sustainably improves returns or doesn't harm them1. So it's little surprise the global sustainable investment market is growing3.
How can my investments help change the world?
You can help shape a better world when you invest sustainably, from alleviating poverty and hunger to combating climate change and injustice. The extent of the impact also depends on the ambition and nature of your investment, whether you choose exclusions, ESG integration or impact investing.
One of the biggest ways you can help change the world is to support the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN aims to make the world a better place by 2030. It's doing this through 17 SDGs, covering everything from clean energy to zero hunger. You can play a big part in helping the UN achieve its goals by investing sustainably.
How can I get started?
With UBS, you have lots of opportunities to invest sustainably – for the good of your finances and the world.
Get off to a great start
Our UBS Manage™ Advance (Sustainable Investing) portfolio makes it easy to get started. It mirrors our award-winning portfolio approach but replaces conventional assets with sustainable ones.
Every asset in your portfolio aims to give you great returns on your money. You can also relax knowing our experts are always managing your portfolio and helping you make the most from your investments.
100% good for you and the world
Equity shares in companies that sell products and services tackling environmental or social challenges, and/or whose businesses are good at managing a single ESG factor, such as gender equality.
Equity shares in companies that are getting better at managing various critical ESG issues and opportunities.
Equity shares in companies that manage various critical ESG issues and seize ESG opportunities better than their competitors.
Bonds that finance environmental projects. Issuers include corporations, municipalities and development banks.
Bonds issued by companies that manage various critical ESG issues and seize ESG opportunities better than their competitors.
An approach where fund managers take active equity stakes. They do this to encourage company management to improve their performance on ESG issues and opportunities. This approach has the most potential with smaller companies.
Bonds issued by the World Bank, a multilateral development bank (MDB). Multiple governments back MDBs, which aim to finance sustainable economic development.
How will we build and manage your portfolio?
Your client advisor will discuss your feelings about risk and whether the portfolio is right for you. From there, we'll build your UBS Manage™ Advance (Sustainable Investing) portfolio. Rest assured, we'll always be working hard to help you achieve your goals.
- Choosing the right assets: We choose sustainable assets that can offer you similar returns to conventional assets. If we can't find a sustainable substitute for a traditional asset, we'll look for suitable alternatives.
- Reducing risk: To help reduce risk to your money, we'll diversify your portfolio across assets, regions and sectors. Over 200 analysts also monitor the markets continually, using the latest technologies to help ensure your investment always performs well.
- Selecting successful fund managers: We look for fund managers that invest sustainably and successfully. To help ensure they can deliver appealing returns on your money, we also challenge and question them on their investment choices.
- Picking single stocks: Would you rather have single stocks (a minimum investment of CHF 1 million) in your portfolio than funds? To help you pick the right ones, more than 140 data analysts will examine stocks worldwide. We'll then use this data to build your portfolio.
What other ways can I invest?
To really reflect your values and help change the world, you can access many more sustainable investing choices and opportunities.
With our UBS Advice™ portfolio, you can choose from lots of sustainable investments, such as green bonds and ESG funds. You can also choose from our impact investing options, which make sure organizations deliver on their promises.
What more can I do?
Changing the world is about more than investing sustainably. It's about giving your time and energy to solving issues you're passionate about. For example, you can help put smiles on the faces of children worldwide through the UBS Optimus Foundation, which supports global projects focusing on young people. Our philanthropy experts can also help put your wealth and ideas to work in the best-possible way.
Why choose UBS?
When investing sustainably, it's good to do it with people who want to set the agenda for such investments. That's UBS.
We want to shape the future of sustainable investing. Why? Because we believe they can deliver great returns and less risk to your money. We're also confident they will soon become the world's most widely accepted way of investing.
As the world's leading wealth manager, we feel responsible for helping change things for the better. We have the capital, products and expertise to make a big difference globally.
These aren't just words. We walk the talk. We're making sustainability the standard across our business. For example, in 2017, we pledged to invest USD 5 billion of our clients' assets into impact investments over the next five years. We promote sustainably by working with experts and organizations worldwide. And you'll always have a team of sustainable investing experts helping you do more for your finances and the world.
Everyone wins
We work hard to make the world a better place, not to win awards. But we’re grateful the industry recognizes our efforts, all the same. Here are some of the awards and recognition we’ve received for putting people – and the planet – first.
Ranked first for expertise in sustainable products and impact investments
Gold Class Sustainability Award 2018
DJSI industry group leader in the Diversified Financials Industry Group
Ranked first by our peers for our philanthropy and social impact investing capabilities / services.
Index member
A+ score in the Strategy and Governance module in the 2018 company assessment
Corporate responsibility prime status
Climate A list
Leader score within our industry
Fresh perspectives
Supporting a positive social or environmental impact as well as achieving compelling financial returns is at the heart of sustainable investing. Read about the latest insights of our Chief Investment Office.
Let's talk
Discover how we can help you do well by doing good.
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