Resource efficiency pays as Osmosis assets break $100m barrier

Osmosis Investment Management now has £100m of assets – a milestone that the firm believes proves its model is “gaining acceptance among institutional investors”.

The organisation focuses on resource efficiency, and uses an innovative approach that involves selecting large companies that excel in their use of water, energy and waste.

To that end, Osmosis’ flagship MoRE (Model of Resource Efficiency) World Index has outperformed the MSCI World Index in each of the last eight years.

“Breaking $100m in institutional money in the current market environment is pretty exciting for a young asset manager establishing a reputation for innovation in a traditional marketplace”, said Gerrit Heyns, a partner at Osmosis.

“Resource efficiency has gained popularity in theory over the past few years.

“We prove that it is far more than theoretical, particularly for investors. We show that it’s an effective and valuable measure of management quality.”

Heyns, who was recently voted 27th in a list of the top 50 people influencing global finance this year, wrote a piece for the Havard Business Review in 2012 that said firms that use less energy and water and produce less waste “tend to produce higher investment returns” for investors.

“Resource efficiency […] is not just some nice-to-have quality”, he wrote in the piece.

“It is a leading indicator of economic performance and one that every investment manager should be tracking. It’s about time that the financial community woke up to this fact and started to take advantage of the data.”

Further reading:

Investments in resource efficient firms shown to outperform competition

Analysis shows the ‘superior performance’ for sustainable investment

Investing sustainably is a ‘clear win’ says study

Survey reveals promising trends for sustainable investment

The Guide to Sustainable Investment