Giving Compass' Take:

• Prachi Seth highlights two ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) funds successfully driving economic growth in Asia and discusses how they achieve results. 

• Are ESG funds the appropriate vehicle for your philanthropic efforts? 

• Learn how ESG funds are surviving economic crisis. 


While the pandemic has resulted in disruptions and uncertainty in the market, asset owners, fund managers and impact investors have remained active. Many have undertaken fundraising and investment in a more climate-aware portfolio.

To demonstrate how ESG funds can catalyse sustainable economic development and offer greater security and co-benefits, we hosted a webinar featuring two impact funds aligned with the Paris Agreement. The first is a growth equity fund called The Norwegian Innovation Fund. Managed by AV Group Ltd (AVG), it focuses on clean technology and renewables. The second is the SDG+ Indonesia Fund, an ESG-screened global public equities and Indonesian debt fund. Managed by PT Bahana TCW and AWR Lloyd, it provides an annual cash yield to a conservation-focused NGO and creates SDG+ outcomes for its investors. Read on to find out how they work.

The Norwegian Innovation Fund: Harnessing the investment potential of clean tech

AVG and the Norwegian government have established in partnership The Norwegian Investment Fund, which aims to bring out Norway’s forerunners in green solutions and upscale them across Asian or U.S. markets before they are eventually acquired. This is strategically sound, as Asia is the next big market for clean solutions, with strong potential for economic growth and increasing consumer openness. These clean tech companies can also become catalysts in the renewable energy sector by discouraging Asia’s reliance on fossil fuels. The sovereign wealth fund of Norway’s response to the pandemic has provided additional opportunity, as they have liquidated $37 billion to inject back into the domestic economy, especially into renewable energy and infrastructure-based companies.

SDG+ Indonesia Fund: Creating multi-capital returns through innovative funding models

AWR Lloyd, a strategy consulting firm with a 20-year track record in providing international best practice investor relations (‘IR’) services to companies in Southeast Asia, partnered with PT Bahana TCW Investment Management, Indonesia’s fourth largest fund manager with over US$3 billion AUM, to launch the ‘SDG+ Indonesia Fund’. The fund employs a multi-capital returns philosophy by taking a holistic approach in quantifying financial and non-financial impacts of the beneficiaries’ programs. Its objective is to encourage investors to quantify the economic value of non-financial returns, expressed as SDG outcomes.

Read the full article about ESG funds by Prachi Seth at AVPN.