Responsible investment insights

Our review of the voting season.

Watch our video.

Our booklet explains our four core principles, or pillars, of responsible investment and how we put them into practice.

Responsible investment – thinking about environmental, social and governance issues as an investor and shareholder – is a priority at Rathbones.

Rathbones has launched its third Votes Against Slavery engagement, securing support from 122 investors with assets under management totalling £9.6 trillion.

A guide to human efforts to tackle climate change.

Why we need to stop sweeping e-waste under the carpet.

Why our planet needs them to survive

We welcomed clients to the fifth session of our Earth Convention series, in partnership with leading cultural events organisation, 5x15. The debate, ‘Natural capital, biodiversity and oceans’, explored how biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history.

How businesses, societies and investors can work together

20 of 22 targeted companies now compliant.

Can we take a bite out of climate change?

Earth Convention webinar: what we eat and why it matters. Our panel explores the global impact of the food system on the environment and climate change.

How can we take a bite out of climate change?

Rathbones has partnered with 5 x 15, one of London’s leading cultural events organisations, to bring you a series of online Zoom talks on climate change and to  ask the questions that need to be answered. 

Earth Convention webinar: our panel discusses fast fashion, consumers and manufacturing – our consumption patterns and the supply chains that feed them.

On the same day that the UK’s largest asset manager, Legal & General, expanded its climate impact pledge, exerting greater pressure on companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 

Earth Convention webinar: watch our panel discuss creating a green transition in energy and finance.

A growing number of people are questioning how their pensions and other savings are invested.

Embracing responsible capitalism and moving away from a ‘profit is everything’ philosophy can address both issues of inequality in society and improve financial returns for investors.

We explore what it means to invest responsibly in our rapidly changing world, we make the case for a responsible recovery – building back better from COVID-19. 

Rathbone Global Sustainability Fund manager David Harrison discusses the rise of renewable energy and how it is making a more sustainable world.

Bad news is feeding many pessimists at the moment. Head of fixed income Bryn Jones sees a different, more optimistic, picture – and he’s investing in it.

At the centre of our responsible capitalism report our stewardship director Matt Crossman and governance and voting analyst Archie Pearson highlight our efforts to put this into practice over the past decade. They highlight the tangible benefits not just to our clients, and not just in financial terms, but to our wider society. Matt Crossman discusses some of the points he makes in the report in the short Q&A videos below.

Brits are on board with investing sustainably to make the world a better place, but impenetrable jargon and complicated processes are preventing them from doing so. We need to try harder to speak their language, says Rathbone Global Sustainability Fund manager David Harrison. 

Since pulling out of the global financial crisis, markets have been on one of the longest bull runs in history. Yet as wages stagnate, productivity slumps and living standards drop, large swathes of people in Western democracies feel left behind. Many of them are losing trust in capitalism itself.

Our stewardship director Matt Crossman and governance and voting analyst Archie Pearson tell us about putting responsible investing into practice over 10 years under the UN-endorsed Principles for Responsible Investment and where we go from here.

Then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan convened a group of the world’s largest institutional investors in early 2005, inviting them to start a process to develop the Principles of Responsible Investment. This panel drafted The Six Principles, which were launched in April 2006 at the New York Stock Exchange.

Led by Greenbank and growing through Rathbones.

Stewardship director Matt Crossman explains how the idea of a responsible capitalism — where firms exist for the wider benefit of society — is nothing new.

Rathbones is delighted to be a partner of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, whose latest strategy, Rewild Our World, represents an ambitious commitment to getting nature back on track in the face of “a planet under pressure”

Fast isn’t always good. The rise of ‘fast fashion’ may have brought short-term happiness to some, but its long-term impacts are potentially devastating.

Consumers, companies and investors alike are increasingly recognising that environmental, social and governance considerations are becoming vital to businesses’ long-term success. The benefits for wider society are also likely to be far-reaching.

Sustainable investing isn’t just about avoiding the risks of outdated businesses or environmental PR disasters, explains our Global Sustainability Fund manager, David Harrison.

Innovation in the design and manufacture of electronic products and devices has resulted in greatly expanded access and brought about benefits for society that were inconceivable only a few decades ago. 

Collins Dictionary’s word of 2018 was ‘single-use’, an unsurprising choice for a year during which public awareness of global plastic waste increased significantly.