Responsible Investor of the Year
AIB Foresight SME Impact Fund
Foresight Group’s approach to SME investing is underpinned by five ESG principles: awareness, environmental, social engagement, governance and third party. These are systematically applied throughout the investment lifecycle.
Foresight has achieved worldwide recognition for its investing practices. The Group has been a signatory to the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (“PRI”) since 2013 and received 5-star ratings for Strategy and Governance across all business lines. Foresight has also been a member of the United Nations Global Impact (“UNGC”) initiative since 2019.
Foresight’s investment into SME’s makes it the backbone of UK Plc. SME businesses are vital to a healthy economy, they are also the provider of the majority of UK employment, accounting for 61% of all jobs in the private sector. Foresight has supported the creation of c.2,600 jobs to date.
Our efforts to promote gender equality within the Group has seen incredible progress, with 26% female representation in senior leadership roles, and bespoke Women in Leadership courses sponsored by the Chair and CFO. Foresight is proud of its track record in backing a diverse range of entrepreneurs and is a signatory to the HM Treasury Investing in Women Code, a member of the Diversity Project, and the Female Founders Office Hours initiative launched by Playfair Capital.
Bridges
Bridges invests exclusively in the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive economy: one where more people can thrive and fulfil their potential, while promoting more responsible stewardship of our planet’s finite resources. Bridges is constantly looking to improve its ESG and impact management, measurement, and reporting, with a view to embedding best practice and maximising commercial and sustainability performance. This year, Bridges became one of the first firms in the industry to roll out granular investment-level ESG and Impact goals for each portfolio company; it also released its first ever ‘integrated’ report, which incorporates the commercial and impact performance of companies into in a single, cohesive format.
Bridges also encourages its portfolio companies to strive to act responsibly and transparently: this year saw another two companies successfully certify as B Corporations.
More broadly, the firm regularly contributes to market-building activities and initiatives that promote responsible investing practices, including the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Just Transition Finance Challenge and the Net Zero Asset Managers Alliance. Via the latter, Bridges published its medium-term carbon target this year: to align 100% of AUM to a Net Zero pathway by 2030.Company.
Kartesia
Kartesia is one of the leading responsible investors in the private markets space in Europe. In the past 12 months the firm has closed several transactions from its innovative impact strategy, which offers sustainability-linked loans to Europe's small and medium-sized companies. This includes two transactions in the UK, for RCI Group and Delivery Associates, both of which offer margin ratchets for the successful delivery of ESG-related targets. In addition, the firm has expanded its internal ESG function with the growth in staff numbers and the requirement for all employees to undertake specialised training to enable them to make the right decisions over ESG in all investments, not just those that are part of the impact strategy.