UBS has released a new white paper for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting 2018 in Davos. The paper focuses on partnerships for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
The paper outlines the steps taken to mobilize capital, including private wealth, towards the SDGs and announces a range of SDG-related partnerships for 2018. It also explores lessons that UBS has learned in this field since the 2017 annual meeting, where it made its most recent SDG commitments. The paper features contributions from the World Economic Forum and interviews with General David H. Petraeus, Chuck Slaughter, and David Hertz.
In the white paper, UBS stated the following SDG-related partnerships:
• The first 100% sustainable cross-asset portfolios for private clients, targeting market rates of risk-adjusted return as well as positive social and environmental outcomes. These portfolios include an exclusive partnership with the World Bank on an allocation to World Bank debt instruments, which offer a more explicit sustainability focus than other highly rated debt, as well as a new best-in-class, shareholder engagement strategy involving Hermes Investment Management – the first strategy to explicitly focus on generating intentional, measurable, and additional social and/or environmental impact through public rather than private equity.
• A partnership with Solactive and leading green bond managers on new indices featuring World Bank, multilateral development bank (MDB), and green bonds. The indices enable asset allocation along three dimensions – financial return, financial risk, and sustainability. These new standards can pave the way for more institutional investors to invest in highly rated sustainable debt, doing good for society while satisfying fiduciary obligations.
• The launch of Align17 (to take place on Jan 24 during the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos). This independent platform, a concept announced in UBS’ white paper for the 2017 Annual Meeting and developed over the past year, stands out in connecting a wider range of public, institutional, and private wealth investors with SDG-related investment opportunities. Align17 is a WEF Young Global Leaders initiative supported by UBS, PwC, Linklaters, the IFC, and Hamilton Lane.
• The Collaborative hosted by UBS, an initiative involving UBS's Global Ultra High Net Worth Philanthropy Center, the UBS Optimus Foundation, and UBS clients. The Collaborative, among other things, endeavors to connect philanthropists to scalable and sustainable solutions to bring healthcare access to more than 34 million people in Africa.
Axel Weber, chairman of UBS, comments: "The UN Sustainable Development Goals define the world's aspirations in addressing social and environmental issues. The 17th SDG – strengthening implementation and revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development – will be critical to meeting the SDGs' 2030 deadline. UBS will continue to initiate collaborations that address the SDGs overall and SDG 17 specifically."
Photo: United Nations Flickr
