Pathfinder Global Water Fund

Product Name	Pathfinder Global Water Fund
Issuer	Pathfinder Asset Management
Category	Investment
Type	Fund or Trust
Target	Retail
Certified Since	2018

Asset Classes	International equities
Markets	New Zealand
Investment Approaches	Sustainability themed, ESG Integration
It Includes:	Sustainable land and agricultural management Sustainable water More sustainable companies
It has some level of screening for:	Fossil fuels
It fully excludes:	Alcohol Animal cruelty Armaments Gambling Genetic engineering Labour rights violations Nuclear power Pornography Tobacco
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/pathfinder-global-water-fund/profile

Overview

Objectives: (1) invest in companies involved in the water industry that satisfy Pathfinder’s socially responsible investment screening and (2) achieve a medium to long-term return higher than the NASDAQ OMX Global Water Index, 50% hedged to NZ dollars. Water companies cover a wide range of activities, including water utilities, filtration, monitoring technology and the manufacture of pumps, pipes and irrigation equipment. The fund does not invest in bottled water.

Description

Our Global Water Fund is an ethical equity fund intended to be a satellite global equity exposure for responsible investors.

The fund directly invests in 50-100 listed water companies. The ethical screening for stock selection has multiple layers:
1 - several exclusion screens are applied including the NZ Super Fund exclusions list and additional revenue exclusions for gambling, tobacco, thermal coal, pornography, controversial armaments and bottled water.
2 - stocks with high current operational "controversy" levels are excluded (i.e. significant current ESG issues based on news flow, lawsuits etc)
3 - portfolio selection optimises the highest portfolio ESG score that will satisfy the Pathfinder Investment Committee targets for geographic spread and other portfolio factors (dividend, volatility, growth, company size etc). ESG is treated as an investible factor.

Our stock selection process uses research and ratings from 2 sources:
1 - Sustainalytics (we were their first client in NZ)
2 - our in-house research (we have a full-time specialist ESG analyst)

Currency exposure in the Global Water Fund is partly hedged with a base target of 50%.

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In July 2019, we lifted our requirements of certified products which we are phasing in over 18 months.

We now require that issuers have organisation-wide commitments to responsible investing and they exercise their responsibilities as stewards of your money - through engaging with companies to improve sustainability performance and voting on shareholder resolutions where possible. All certified products now need to at least avoid significant harm and their issuers will annually report against any sustainability-based claims made by their products. This uplift in program standards is part of our passion for, and on-going commitment to, responsible and ethical investing.

Even though we're lifting the bar, we know your convictions to doing good with your money may be higher and so we have served up our member's certified products with a large dose of transparency and independent verification, so that you can draw your own conclusions from reliable information and choose investments that best suit your individual needs.