Socially Responsible and Impact Investing
Impact investments are made with the intention to generate measurable social and environmental impact in addition to a financial return.
Many Beacon Pointe clients are committed to socially responsible and impact investing, and the Beacon Pointe advisory team works to express these values in client investment policy statements and portfolios.
What is Impact Investing?
Socially-Responsible Investing (SRI) is defined by negative and/or positive screening and shareholder advocacy. SRI investors deliberately seek funds that screen out investments in tobacco, weapons, animal testing, petroleum industries, etc.
Sustainable Investing is characterized by investors seeking to invest in companies that demonstrate socially-responsible behavior or practices. This operational impact is classified as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices.
Impact Investing incorporates SRI and ESG factors and is a directed approach used to address a particular goal of the client.
A Socially Responsible Investment Approach
Beacon Pointe assists clients with determining what matters most to them and then develops a personal SRI Investment Policy Statement that reflects these passions. The advisory team then creates a customized portfolio for each client, choosing specific mission-related equity, fixed income and alternative strategies from Beacon Pointe’s extensive menu of impact investing options. Clients have access to a full range of vehicles, including:
Separately Managed Accounts
Private Placements
Mutual Funds and ETFs
Beacon Pointe minimizes costs and maximizes efficiency while enabling clients to accomplish their goals. This is done by paying careful attention to the process of establishing the portfolio structure and recognizing the paramount importance of social guidelines and restrictions.
How Beacon Pointe Evaluates Strategies
In addition to meeting Beacon Pointe’s strict quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria, responsible and impact investment manager candidates are asked to complete additional due diligence, including an in-depth review of:
Overall philosophy and approach to responsible and impact investing
Firm-wide resources dedicated to the responsible investing effort and related strategies
Information sources and analytical tools used in the team’s ESG and SRI research
Relative importance of exclusionary and inclusionary screens during the idea generation process
Values-based considerations in portfolio construction, buy and sell disciplines, and risk guidelines
Ability to customize client portfolios to meet specific social objectives and restrictions
Approach to shareholder activism and proxy voting, level of industry and community involvement
Thought leadership in the area of responsible investing, published research on related topics