About Ethius Invest
The company, founded in 2018, specializes exclusively in sustainable and ethical investments. By combining a sustainable investment strategy, active exercise of voting rights and fiduciary exercise of shareholder rights, including exercising the right to speak and ask questions at general meetings, Ethius Invest positions itself as a committed player in the field of sustainable finance. The company goes beyond passive investments and actively influences corporate practices in order to promote positive changes in the economy and society.
The extent to which investors can potentially influence companies' business practices when it comes to urgently needed improvements in environmental and social issues is often underestimated. While internal efforts by companies and the influence exerted on them by civil society or regulators have so far produced inadequate results on the path to greater social and environmental justice, the influence of investors is likely to play a decisive role in this regard in the future.
The basic prerequisite for this is that investors exercise their shareholder rights more systematically. Voting at general meetings requires an intensive examination of the business practices of a portfolio company. As an owner-managed asset manager and fund initiator, Ethius Invest offers individual solutions from a single source by acting as a fiduciary for its customers and promoting shareholder democracy, thereby setting new standards in the ethical and sustainable investment segment with its product segment of value-oriented shares and bond funds.
Sustainability arises where people care
Ultimately, behind all economic activities there are people with their values and beliefs. People are social beings and therefore act together, for example within companies. Ethius Invest was not only initiated by the three founders to bring visions and ideals to the world, but rather to develop and offer a solution to concrete problems. "We wanted a down-to-earth and honest financial product that would yield a decent return and at the same time make a maximum effort for sustainable development through the investments," says Luisa Lange, founding partner of Ethius Invest.
Financial products are trust goods
This is even more true in the area of sustainable investments. Financial products are trustworthy goods whose quality is particularly difficult to assess. This becomes even more relevant for sustainable investments, especially in times of mainstreaming and greenwashing. In order to check credibility, it is therefore advisable to first analyze the business model and the underlying understanding of ethics and sustainability.
Anyone who takes a closer look at Ethius Invest will come across a variety of topics and issues that the company deals with. For example, it is critical of trends in the area of sustainable finance that see nature as "capital" and strive for increasing monetization and commodification of economic life. This testifies to a critical and reflective attitude in the sense of sustainable development. The funds offered, Ethius Global Impact and the CSR Bond Focus SDG , are nevertheless aimed at contributing to the United Nations' sustainability goals as part of Agenda 2030.​​
The core of the business model
There are providers for whom sustainability is merely a marketing tool. It is a completely different story when companies see their original purpose as offering alternatives to conventional investments. Reliable indicators of this are when only sustainable financial products are offered, sustainability is integrated into all areas of the company and is anchored in the management bodies, as in the case of Ethius Invest. In order to remain true to its goals, the company is always mindful of its independence. The three founders are the sole owners of the company and co-invest in its product range.
Credibility of sustainable investment products
If the fund initiator lives sustainability out of inner conviction, this will be reflected above all in the investment products, in a twofold form: a foundation of values and an impact orientation. The two belong together like the famous two sides of a coin. Those who live by values will assume that they are making a difference in the world. And those who want to make a difference can only name the impact goals if they have previously identified what is important and desirable on the basis of values.
Applied to the toolbox of sustainable investment, this means that exclusion criteria, dialogue strategies and positive criteria complement each other and can sometimes even reinforce each other. They should therefore be fully integrated into a holistic sustainable investment strategy, depending on the product, asset class and specific investment. What is also important in terms of sustainability and the credibility of sustainable financial products is the extent to which consistent efforts are made to achieve maximum impact effectiveness of the investment. This, too, cannot be determined solely on the basis of externally identifiable and easily verifiable criteria. But there are some indications.
A holistic concept of impact
A sustainable investment can have both an indirect and a direct effect. This is done through dialogue strategies – also called engagement – portfolio allocation and other channels such as information, awareness-raising and reputation. More about this can be found, for example, in the page for the description of impact of the two funds of Ethius Invest.
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Since dialogue strategies can have a very direct impact on the investor, they are often attributed a high impact potential. In fact, this is one of the points at which it becomes apparent whether a provider really means it. This is even more true when there is continuous monitoring and when controversial dialogues are initiated and voting and speaking rights are used to promote improvements and solutions. An active shareholder democracy is a key to joint decisions in the interests of the environment and society.
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On the other hand, industries and business practices that do not contribute to a sustainable economy or cannot transform themselves should be excluded. Therefore, a look at the negative lists of an investment product is indispensable – as well as at the economic activities and areas that are to be supported. In addition, if the desired effect is based on internationally accepted standards, such as the UN Sustainability Goals, this is another indicator of credibility. In the case of self-defined impact targets, on the other hand, it should first be checked from which values they are derived and in which sense positive or potentially negative effects can be expected.
Social commitment
Providers of sustainable investments who are also socially committed are thereby signaling an awareness of the limits of the impact of their investments. Not everything can be solved in the private sector. A return cannot always be generated. Funds that take this into account, for example, donate part of their management fees. This creates an additional impact component that has so far hardly been taken into account as a criterion in impact analyses of sustainable investments.
At Ethius Global Impact, part of the fees goes to projects in the areas of drinking water, population development, deforestation, climate change, poverty and biodiversity through the Ethius Foundation . The CSR consulting company, the portfolio manager of the two Ethius funds, distributes a third of its company profits to a foundation (the Clément Foundation) that supports education and opportunities for participation. This contributes to preserving the foundations of our society and economy.
Collaborative dialogue strategies to jointly achieve greater impact
Fund initiators with a serious and ambitious approach to sustainability are also often active in associations and organizations in order to work together for ecological and social transformation. Initiatives that collaboratively implement dialog strategies play a special role in connection with sustainable investments. Research also indicates that this factor can strengthen the impact of investor dialog in terms of sustainable development. Ethius Invest is therefore an active member of Shareholders for Change (SfC), an association of European investors, with the aim of promoting collaborative engagement with companies and thus contributing to an economy that is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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Transparency and communication
The activities of SfC and the investors involved in the individual initiatives are presented transparently in the annual engagement report. This can also have an impact in terms of raising awareness, albeit an indirect one that is difficult to measure. The same applies to further communication on sustainable investment products. Ethius Invest, for example, publishes profiles of the fund companies' strengths and weaknesses, its voting guidelines, the reports on activities at Annual General Meetings and the engagement guidelines. The impact report is available upon request.
Transparency and communication are important in two respects: they enable investors to form their own impression of the credibility of fund initiators and asset managers and also have a potential impact on fund companies and on raising social awareness. Communication must be comprehensible, clear and, above all, truthful, especially when it comes to trust products and complex issues such as sustainability.
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Challenges for ambitious sustainable investment philosophies
Sustainability requires skills in dealing with multidimensionality and complexity. It requires innovative and often creative solutions that have to be constantly developed, adapted and improved. Committed and intrinsically motivated people guarantee that this can happen. Sustainability can therefore only be prescribed by law or measured on the basis of individual, purely quantitative criteria and external characteristics to a limited extent.
For this reason, the following still applies, particularly in the case of sustainable investment: it is the people and their motivation that have a direct impact on the fund initiator's business model and investment philosophy.
Partners & Managing Directors
Julius Alexander van Sambeck
Johann Robin Schmitt-Opitz
Maria Luisa Lange
Advisory Council
Dr.iur. Marcel Aellen
Legal Counsel
