Responsible Investor

Investor appeal for ‘packaged’ sustainability products: TBLI Asia report

Investors, entrepreneurs and NGOs converge on Bangkok for TBLI Asia 2008.

Institutional investors are unable to take advantage of increasing numbers of interesting sustainability investment proposals because they are not packaged for appropriate scale and due diligence requirements, according to Rob Lake, head of sustainability at APG Investments, the €250bn fund manager of Dutch pension fund ABP.
Speaking at the Triple Bottom Line Investing (TBLI) conference Asia in Bangkok, Thailand, Lake said he had been impressed by presentations at the event from Asian renewable energy entrepreneurs. However, he pointed out that the fund manager could only look at investments of $50m minimum and said he was surprised at a lack of relevant packaged investments on the market: “Seen from our end of the pipe, small-scale investments are just not viable. It would be great if there were people out there, probably in the private equity sector, who would come to us with at least some sort of entry point; not necessarily fully packaged product, but at least an understanding of our size and the kind of detail we need before we invest.”
Lake’s comments captured some of the pluses and minuses of the TBLI Asia event. Its strength is that it

brings together sustainability entrepreneurs with investors in the region where much of the important production of large- and small-scale renewable energy solutions are happening. Innovations presented this year included environmentally friendly concrete produced from pulverised fly ash, localised hydro electricity and energy efficient refrigeration. Stewart Armer, head of Sustainable and Responsible Investment, Fortis Investments, told the conference that it was “increasingly drawn to Asia” looking at opportunities in countries where situations of stress, notably regarding the environment, were in turn producing a number of good undervalued companies well placed to meet growth in demand on sustainability themes. At the same time, Asia, the world’s factory, is home to many serious cases of poor environmental, social and human rights practices. The presence at the conference of local and international NGOs working in the field is a reminder of the human face at the end of the investment chain. Few conferences achieve this balance. Other topics on the programme felt more relevant than ever: peak oil, biofuels and palm oil production in Asia, emissions trading, microfinance and water.

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