Topic: Responsible Investing
Not Your Grandparent’s Farm: Emerging Opportunities in an Often-Overlooked Sector
The Rationale for Investing in Agriculture: Growth, Diversification, Sustainability, Inflation Hedge Commonfund Forum 2024 convened a panel to examine emerging trends and opportunities for private...
Unlocking Sustainable Investment: Insights from Ethan Levine
At SuperReturn Energy, Ethan Levine, Managing Director, CF Private Equity, discussed the continued focus on sustainability and ESG, touching on net zero, decarbonization and climate pledges.
COP28 Reflections: Can Intention Be Met With Action?
The 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“COP28”) recently concluded in Dubai on December 13th, 2023. Unique to this year’s conference was the...
Four Things we Learned from Foundation Leaders
Following the release of the Council on Foundations–Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations (the “Study”), Commonfund Institute hosted a three-part Coffee...
Impact and Value-Aligned Investing - Commonfund Coffee Talk
Impact and value-aligned investing The final session in our Commonfund Coffee Talk 2023 series, foundation leaders discuss impact and values-aligned investing, a focus for many foundations and the...
Investing in the Sustainable Evolution of the Industrial Ecosystem
CF Private Equity’s Real Assets and Sustainability team recently hosted a fireside chat webinar with the Noveon Magnetics CEO, Scott Dunn. Preceding this conversation was a brief overview of CF...
Presidential Veto Upholds Legitimacy of ESG Investing
In March 2023, President Biden acted to secure the U.S. Department of Labor Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Rule as foundational investment policy that permits fiduciaries of private...
How to Implement ESG at Your Institution
The following has been adapted from a presentation delivered at Commonfund Forum 2023. The presenters were Rachel Stavola Clivaz, Associate Director, and Anthony Peretore, Managing Director,...
Why Governance Matters to ESG
According to the Financial Times “Investing within an ESG framework is now the fastest-growing segment of the asset management industry.” In line with this growth is the increasing number of...
Investing into Energy Security
On February 24, 2022, Russia fired the first shots of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, setting off a cascade of global changes that systemically altered the world order. The horrific humanitarian...
Aligning Endowments & Investments with Foundation Values
Reflections from the Council on Foundations' webinar The 2020 Council on Foundations-Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations (CCSF) is the field’s most...
Viewpoint | The Climate for Responsible Investing is Changing
Climate change is a source of concern around the world—from environmental scientists to government policymakers to ordinary citizens. In a more figurative sense, the climate for responsible investing...
ESG and Sustainable Investing
ESG and environmentally sustainable investment are increasingly capturing the attention of the institutional investment community. To assess the state of ESG and sustainable investing and how they...
Investing in ESG and Sustainability
ESG and environmentally sustainable investments are increasingly capturing the attention of the institutional investment community. Historically, we saw more conversation and less broad investment...
Commonfund’s Second Invitational Diverse Manager Day
Earlier this month, Commonfund held its second invitational Diverse Manager Day with 19 managers identified through our Diverse Manager Portal. These diverse managers1 , from historically...
Diverse Manager Portal Re-opens
WILTON, CT (August 24, 2020)— Commonfund, a prominent asset manager for endowments, foundations and public pension investors, announced today the re-opening of its online Diverse Manager Portal (“The...
Intergenerational Equity and Sustainable Investing
Intergenerational equity was defined by economist James Tobin in 1974. He wrote, “The trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present. Their task in...
Examining the Sustainability Conundrum
Sustainable investing, sometimes called ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing, has been a hotly contested topic for years. And the debate continues with both supporters and naysayers...
DEI and Crisis Management: Staying the Course in Uncertain Times
The times we are living in are unprecedented. On March 11th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the spread of COVID-19 constituted a global pandemic. Currently, in the U.S., the virus...
Viewpoint | Responsible Investing Practices: Evolution, Not Resolution
In recent years, responsible investing has received mounting levels of attention from all quarters of the investment management field, from institutional investors large and small to global asset...
Commonfund’s First Invitational Diverse Manager Day
On January 16th Commonfund held its first invitational Diverse Manager Day. The day was made possible as a result of the success we had from submissions to the Diverse Manager Portal launched last...
Impact Investing Trends - A Market Matures
Investment strategy influenced by altruistic intentions – broadly, impact investing – has long held sway in a small number of portfolios. Historically, impact investing has failed to gain significant...
Integrating ESG into Private Equity Portfolios
Many investors today, particularly nonprofits, are seeking to align their investment portfolio with the mission of their organization. Commonfund is a signatory to the PRI and as part of our...
Announcing the Commonfund Diverse Manager Portal
In the fall of 2018, Commonfund announced the creation of its Diversity and Inclusion Office with the mission to “intentionally promote and foster inclusion and equity across Commonfund and our...
Looking at Gender Lens Investing
What is Gender Lens Investing? Gender lens investing has garnered significant traction in the last decade. Broadly speaking, it aims to achieve financial returns and benefit women. Given the breadth...
Emerging and Diverse Manager Programs: Worth Doing Well
Michael Rowland is the Commonfund Institute Summer Intern. He is a rising senior at Case Western Reserve University. He is majoring in Finance and Accounting. What are Diverse and Emerging Manager...
Commonfund Forum: A Carbon Neutral Event in 2019
In just two years Commonfund will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a non-profit investment manager for educational endowments, foundations and other tax-exempt investors. Throughout those almost...
How to get Started in Responsible Investing
The biggest challenge in implementing any type of responsible investment program is in clearly defining and prioritizing those issues most relevant to an organization. Although it may seem a...
Identifying an “E” Factor
Over the past year the Commonfund investment teams have undertaken research to identify and isolate a new factor associated with the environmental sustainability of a stock (or a portfolio of...
Applying the Endowment Model to Diversity and Inclusion
Commonfund recently launched a Diversity Office, a formal, cross departmental effort focused on diversity and inclusion. The mission of the Commonfund Diversity Office is to intentionally promote and...
Viewpoint: Responsible Investing - Read All About It
The new and newsworthy in this year’s Council on Foundations–Commonfund Study of Investment of Endowments for Private and Community Foundations® (CCSF) is headlined by responsible investing. No other...
What are the Differences Between SRI and ESG?
The Challenges of Terminology There are a great many terms referring in some way to practices related to responsible investing: socially responsible investing; mission-related investing; impact...
Diversity and Emerging Managers
The benefits of diversity are widely recognized in the work place and among educational institutions and other nonprofits. Yet, the concept of investment management firms that are minority owned and...
Should Investors Be Concerned with ESG Investing
The subject of ESG, or investing in accord with environmental, social and governance principles, arose in several sessions at Commonfund Forum 2018. One session, in particular, was devoted to the...
Investing in Diversity
At Commonfund, we scour the globe to find investment managers that we believe have the ability to consistently produce excess returns (alpha) over and beyond their benchmark. But alpha alone is not...
Viewpoint: Responsible Investing for Foundations
Introduction In recent years, growing attention has been paid to the use by endowed institutions of so-called responsible investing practices. The three main practices — environmental, social and...
Viewpoint: A Firmer Foundation
How long is the long term? A year ago, private and community foundations appeared to many observers to have recovered from the losses suffered in the 2008–09 global financial crisis. Double-digit...
Better Understanding Responsible Investing Practices
How can you do the most good, with limited resources, when facing enormous problems? That question lies at or near the heart of every decision at a foundation. This is true of the grant dollars which...
Integration of ESG Factors in Practical Steps
In the current climate of slow global economic growth and resource constraints at many institutions, integration of ESG considerations in an organization’s investment portfolio may be perceived as a...
Bridging the Gap: Carbon and Fiduciary Responsibility
Most institutional investor discussions and actions regarding global warming have been at two ends of the spectrum: either divest from fossil fuels entirely or remain fully invested. A better...
Responsible Investing for Foundations
Commonfund and the Council on Foundations are thrilled to announce the release of the 2016 Council on Foundations – Commonfund Study of Responsible Investing. It is the largest and most detailed...
Common Concerns about Responsible Investing
Discussions about whether responsible investing strategies help or hurt investment performance are complicated by the fact that, there are several broad categories of responsible investing practice...
Ideas for Next Gen Energy Investing
Advances in alternative energy technologies promise to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Largely, however, they remain just that—a promise. So, where are the opportunities to invest in...
Responsible Investing: Terminology and Background
The terms socially-responsible investing (SRI), mission-related investing, impact investing and environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing – all frequently grouped under the heading of...
Impact Investing: Balancing the Best of Responsibility & Opportunity
Impact investing is showing growth around the world. According to the most recent J.P. Morgan/Global Impact Investing Network Impact Investor Survey, the number of institutional investors engaging in...
What is ESG Investing?
Generally speaking, Environmental Social and Governance, or ESG for short, is used to describe a group of characteristics that can have a material impact on the long-term success of a company and,...
ESG: Principles for Responsible Investment
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are a topic for active discussion in board rooms. Here’s an update on Commonfund’s thoughts and actions and how ESG may relate to you. In general,...
ESG and Your Institution: Doing Well by Doing Good
Investing according to environmental, social and governance principles is maturing into a distinct discipline. Robust research results dispute the conventional wisdom about performance trade-offs. If...