At Vontobel, we dedicate our focus towards sustainability, responsible investing, and community engagement, aiming to empower investors to build better futures. 

Vontobel’s focus on empowering investors to build better futures: a close-up on sustainability

The concept that “everyone is an investor” acknowledges that investing goes beyond traditional financial markets: time, money, and attention are crucial investments that individuals make each and every day.

And we have all been paying more attention to the sustainability issues that impact our lives. Some of them, such as climate change, are more obvious as they’re being felt on a day to day basis by many across the globe including atypical weather patterns and agricultural disruptions. This in addition to increased frequency of extreme weather events like devastating hurricanes around the globe, extreme droughts flaring up continents, and heatwaves leading to the spread of diseases due to the gradual changes in the local weather patterns affecting crops and agriculture. 

So, what role do financial institutions play in building a more sustainable future? We believe it’s a crucial one, through strategic capital allocation. This requires a top-to-bottom approach in terms of incorporating sustainability into corporate values and pivotally responsible investment approaches. At Vontobel, we dedicate our focus to sustainability, responsible investing, and community engagement.

Vontobel is proud to participate in the Vision 2045 campaign and share how the company tries to do its part in laying the groundwork for lasting positive change. This short video touches on some of the key points that reflect our efforts within our own business and how they extend to our clients. 

How Vontobel’s culture strives to incorporate sustainability to help build better futures

The financial industry has adopted a widespread action plan to tackle climate change over the years, reflected in changes to regulation in the EU, UK, and Swiss landscapes and subsidies supporting the energy transition.

As an active investment firm, the integration of ESG factors into Vontobel’s product and service offerings is a key part of our sustainability strategy. We incorporate ESG criteria into investment decisions to empower our clients to reach their financial goals while also seeking to building a better future.

We try to incorporate this conviction across the board. This includes being led by our six Sustainability Commitments, our experience in impact investing, our participation in the FT Moral Money Forum’s Advisory Board to help shape topics covered in the ESG debate and highlight the macro- and philosophical questions involved, and our very approach to investing.

Investors can engage with their portfolio holdings to influence business strategy or operations in a manner that is tied to a better future. They can also have a meaningful role in the governance and oversight of a company’s strategy and capital allocations, for example, by supporting management decisions to reinvest retained profits in impactful activities and either challenging or supporting their approach to managing potential adverse impacts on people and the planet.

A sustainable, better future for all – a goal best achieved in collaboration

As climate change is one of the biggest challenges of this century, it cannot simply be ignored in forward-looking investment planning. We strive to protect the assets of our clients; as such, addressing climate change impacts on investments is a key consideration for both private and institutional clients.

It is not a challenge that one sector — let alone one company — can overcome alone. Indeed, collaboration leads to the actions that are so desperately needed.

Find out more about Vision 2045