Institutional Intentionality. Aligning Institutional Investors with the Global SDG Agenda

Who’s behind it? – 17 Asset Management

How can it help? – In the new impact economy, investors are increasingly demanding financial products that drive financial returns through creating social and environmental value. By embracing intentionality, institutional investors can channel capital towards impact-focused opportunities and thereby act on and invest in solving the world’s most pressing challenges. To this end, the SDGs are a powerful framework to guide structured investments towards long-term financial value and impact. And yet, there is still minimal involvement from institutional investors, leading to a large funding gap for the SDGs and a missed opportunity to reconcile financial interest with long term global needs.

This report identifies a small and growing community of institutions – insurance companies, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, among others – who have taken a first step in practical applications of the SDGs into portfolio management. These early-movers and sample investment strategies can help pave the way for a framework that guides asset owners’ engagement with the SDGs.