The Guide to Ownership 2013

Active ownership is one of the most crucial parts of investment and long-term wealth creation. And communicating that very fact is the reason we’ve published this Guide to Ownership.

A parliamentary reception took place earlier this week to celebrate Ownership Day – an event co-ordinated by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF), which aims to raise awareness of the benefits of encouraging financial professionals to use your money to enforce real change within the businesses that you might invest in, through voting and engaging with them.

UKSIF says over £800 billion of assets are invested in this way in the UK, adding that there is “clear evidence that it encourages more long-term sustainable behaviour by companies, which in turn leads to better value for investors”.

While not overtly related to sustainable, responsible or ethical investment – it’s relevant across the whole investment universe – active ownership chimes very well among investors who look to use their money for social or environmental gains, as well as a financial return. The long-term benefits reaped from adopting the technique are a natural fit with the long-termism attached to investing responsibly.

We’d like to pass on our congratulations to UKSIF for a fantastic event, which we hope will be a fixture in the financial calendar for years to come. Ownership Day might have only lasted for 24 hours, but adopting active ownership strategies will benefit investors no end.

Click here to download The Guide to Ownership 2013 (11MB file).

On the go? Download the mobile version (5MB file).

You can also access the report on Issuu and Scribd.

We published seven reports last year in our Guide to… series, covering ethical shopping, sustainable banking, sustainable investment, sustainable tourism, limitless clean energy and responsible media, as well as a second sustainable investment issue that was published as part of National Ethical Investment Week. Our two previous reports in 2013 have covered sustainable tourism and sustainable investment.