An inconvenient youth

In the report

The winner

At the EIC event, Triodos Investment Management received both the primary recommendation from the FGP as well as the highest score in the audience vote, making them winners of the EIC process with their Triodos Future Generations Fund.

Triodos Investment Management is a pure-play impact investor with a global reach and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Triodos Bank, which has been providing sustainable and ethical financial services in Europe for over 45 years. The Triodos Future Generations Fund is a public equities fund established in 2022. It applies UNICEF’s Child-Lens Investing Framework.

The fund holds 35-40 small to mid-cap companies, focusing on: child health and survival; access to education; protection from violence and exploitation; environment and climate; and equality and inclusion. At the time of the event, the fund had approximately £87 million assets under management.

In their recommendation speech, the FGP said:

“We wanted an ISP that does not contribute harm such as investing in arms, war, and maltreatment of employees. We instead were looking for an ISP that contributed to future generations… [Triodos Investment Management] met these expectations. They were transparent and showed clarity in their strategies, especially in a way for us to understand, as well as handling our challenging questions well which gives us more confidence in them. Furthermore, they were willing to comply with our restrictions… They were engaging when presenting and overall sound like they would make a valuable impact in the future… Across all three metrics – impact on future generations, organisation credibility, and financial investment performance – Triodos was the most well-rounded.”

Future Generations Panel

Throughout the process, partners and the FGP were impressed with Triodos Investment Management for their:

Clear and authentic communication: lack of greenwashing, honest answers to questions and limited use of jargon

Close fit with the mandate: explicit future generations focus and meeting all exclusions in the RFP at the group level

Commitment to impact: impact analysis before financial analysis in their investment process, which is unusual

Financial performance: reasonable track record given the landscape of similar funds

Organisational alignment: recognised and long-standing commitment to sustainable finance

Overall, Triodos Investment Management provided a well-rounded application that prioritised long-term impact on future generations alongside reasonable financial return, making them a worthy winner.