Our thinking

Deep impact

25 June, 2020

An annual report has been released by an investment firm! Not interested? You should be. WHEB is no ordinary investor, and their new impact report is no ordinary corporate publication. Not least because you will actually want to read it. 

WHEB is an impact investor, going further than the ESG crowd we wrote about last week by investing only in companies that actively make the world a better place. They have been a leader in this field for the last fifteen years and, for their investors, this year’s report contains some familiar but impressive sights. The mapping of impact to the SDGs, tracking of progress towards net zero by 2025, and their remarkable ‘impact calculator’; a tool that quantitatively brings to life an individual investor’s contribution, through their investments, to areas like green energy and healthcare provision. 

What’s new is even more exciting: a five-dimensional ‘impact engine’ they use to measure the impact of any business. A powerful tool in an ESG world dominated by woolly definitions. 80% of listed companies, they say, get negative scores. Those positive-scoring businesses that make it into the WHEB portfolio are openly declared and mapped, with rationales provided for each. 

This innovation, transparency and impact makes WHEB a first-class example of a good business. They are already leading in their field, yet they continue to push the boundaries. To learn from the best, even if you’re not (yet) an investor, reading this new report will pay dividends. 

By Ben Wood