Hello and welcome to our special Ethical Investment Week (EIW) podcast! The theme for EIW 2021 is Wayfinding for ethical investment. In its simplest definition, wayfinding is about observing the natural world in order to work out your location, orient yourself towards your destination, set a course to get you there, then dynamically respond to signs as you journey. Wayfinding is as relevant for our times as it has been throughout history. By drawing upon ancient wisdom, modern wayfinders hold insights that can make a big difference for ethical investors and a sustainable future. On that basis, who better to talk to about rich Aboriginal cultural traditions than Kado Muir! Kado is Chair of the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance and the National Native Title Council. He is a Ngalia Traditional Owner and a Wati – a Goldfields Aboriginal cultural and community leader, and an anthropologist/archaeologist with many years’ experience working in Aboriginal heritage, language preservation and maintenance, traditional ecological, education and native title research. Kado also operates a number of businesses including an Aboriginal art business, a Sandalwood company, and a heritage consultancy business. He is a long-time activist for bilingual and two way education, environmental and cultural heritage protection and promoting alternative community based enterprises, especially through his PhD university partnerships for research on Wealth in First Nations.On 24 May 2020, Rio Tinto destroyed a site that represented 46,000 years of culture and history for the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) peoples of the Pilbara in Western Australia. The blast devastated a place of personal, community, national and international significance. People around the globe responded with shock and outrage. In talking to Kado, there’s so much more to the story than this incident. Perhaps it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, but we have so much work to do to understand cultural heritage protection. What is Free, Prior and Informed Consent? What do know about the sites we are destroying? I learnt a lot from Kado, and I couldn’t let him go without giving us a dreamtime story – so make sure you stick around to the end for that! You can find Kado on LinkedIn & http://www.kadomuir.com.au To learn more about ethical investment week, please visit www.ethicaladvisercoop.com.au   For more information about James Baird and JustInvest Financial Planning see: www.justinvest.net.au  We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we recorded on, the Wardandi Noongar people. We pay our respects to them and their culture; and to elders past, present and future. 

This interview is with Kate Temby of Affirmative Investment Management. I was keen to talk to an Impact bond manager to demystify the world of bonds, particularly those that can help communities or transform infrastructure in a sustainable way. We explain some of the jargon, talk about ‘Waci’ budgets, and discuss how it’s possible to create a positive social and environmental impact with bonds, without comprising returns. Their global bond fund holds about 110 bonds, representing over 2,000 projects across 136 countries. Kate has 29 years’ industry experience, including Co-head of Asia Pacific Institutional Sales, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Research Sales at Goldman Sachs JBWere (NY), and Financial Risk Consultant at PWC (Melbourne/Toronto). She has a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University Australia, and is an Australian Institute of Company Directors graduate.  Affirmative Investment Management (AIM) is a global fixed income manager focused on delivering mainstream market returns with impact. AIM is the world’s first fund manager to dedicate their investment strategy to impact bonds, including labelled green bonds, social bonds and sustainable bonds. AIM's innovative formula is a fusion of mainstream portfolio management and sustainability, providing positive solutions to global challenges. AIM’s focus is to promote robust verification and reporting, along with active engagement, whilst ensuring repeatable performance and sustainable impact. Established in 2014, AIM is 100% owned by its employees and headquartered in London, with offices in Washington and Sydney. You can check out their website at: affirmativeim.com I hope you enjoy this discussion with Kate Temby.  We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we’re recording on, the Wardandi Noongar people. We pay our respects to them and their culture; and to elders past, present and future.

In this podcast I interview Dr Stuart Palmer, the Head of Ethics Research at Australian Ethical. Stuart evaluates the impacts which companies’ products, services and operations have on people, animals and the environment. So if you ever wondered why a particular company is or isn’t in Australian Ethical’s portfolios, Stuart is your man. He is the gatekeeper of Australian Ethical’s charter, a list of 23 principles that have been part of the company constitution since 1986. The charter not only guides all of their investments, but also underpins all elements of Australian Ethical’s business…it effectively filters out companies that don’t match their ethical criteria. So in order to better understand this process, we did an ‘ethical Q&A’ - I threw some stock names at Stuart, and asked him clarify whether that company was ‘in’ or ‘out’, based on ethics! This is part one of a two part discussion with Australian Ethical – in our second interview, we will be looking at the decision making processes around stock picking, once the ethical filtering has been done. Australian Ethical is an award winning ethical wealth management company based in Sydney. Australian Ethical has over $6 billion in funds under management and over 66,000 clients. It is one of the fastest growing super and investment funds in the country by both number of members and funds under management. 10% of Australian Ethical's profits fund the Australian Ethical Foundation and its Community Grants program. The company was a founding B Corp in Australia, and the first publicly listed company in Australia to achieve B Corp status. You can check out their website at: www.australianethical.com.auI hope you enjoy listening to this interview with Stuart Palmer of Australian Ethical. For more information about James Baird and JustInvest Financial Planning see: www.justinvest.net.au   We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we’re recording on, the Wardandi Noongar people. We pay our respects to them and their culture; and to elders past, present and future. 

 I recorded this interview whilst the 2021 Tokyo Olympics were underway, which was fitting because Tom King won a gold medal for sailing at the Sydney Olympics and was later awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to sport. It's not uncommon to apply skills acquired in the sporting arena in the business world, and Tom talks about there being some particularly strong parallels with sailing and investment. He says that sailing at the top level becomes "a decision making game played in a very dynamic environment against a large group of competitors". So it seems he is in the perfect role as Nanuk Asset Managements' Chief Investment Officer, and one of the firm’s Portfolio Managers! He joined Nanuk in 2009 and has approximately 20 years’ investment industry experience in equity funds management, investment banking and private equity. Tom holds a first class honours degree in Engineering from the University of Melbourne.  Nanuk Asset Management was established in 2009 to develop world-leading expertise in the investment opportunities and risks associated with environmental sustainability and resource use efficiency. Their focus is global and they invest in listed companies associated with the broad themes of clean energy, energy efficiency, industrial efficiency, waste management, pollution control, food & agriculture, advanced & sustainable materials, water and healthcare technology. They are active, fundamental investors with a valuation based and research driven investment approach. Their portfolios are sustainably-themed and they incorporate positive and negative screening, ESG factors and values-based norms into their decision-making process. Nanuk is an independent firm, privately owned by its founders and with staff located in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and London. You can check out their website at: www.nanukasset.comI hope you enjoy listening to this interview with Tom King of Nanuk Asset Management.  For more information about James Baird and JustInvest Financial Planning see: www.justinvest.net.au  We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we recorded on, the Wardandi Noongar people. We pay our respects to them and their culture; and to elders past, present and future.

It was great to have this chat with Nick Edgerton – his enthusiasm for sustainable investing is infectious, and whenever I talk to him I get the feeling that there’s no cutting corners in terms of creating positive impact economically, socially and environmentally. It was a wide ranging discussion, from Antarctica, to coconuts, yoghurt, EV’s, taxes and a lot in between – I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did! Nick is a Portfolio Manager with the Sustainable Funds Group at Stewart Investors. Nick joined the team in 2012, and he is the lead manager of the Worldwide Sustainability strategy. Previously, Nick worked as an analyst, consultant, public servant, and academic in sustainability and economics. He holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, and a Master of Science with Distinction in Ecological Economics from the University of Edinburgh. Stewart Investors Sustainable Funds Group describe themselves as a small team of passionate investors managing investment portfolios on behalf of clients with a focus on high-quality companies that are well positioned to contribute to, and benefit from, sustainable development. You can check out their website at www.stewartinvestors.comFor more information about James Baird and JustInvest Financial Planning see: www.justinvest.net.au We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we recorded on, the Wardandi Noongar people. We pay our respects to them and their culture; and to elders past, present and future.