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- Credit Suisse Rockefeller Ocean Engagement Fund is a listed equities (UCITS) fund, providing retail and institutional investors with the opportunity to seek to generate alpha and engage for a sustainable blue economy
- As investment advisors to the fund, RAM employs a fundamental global equity strategy investing in 30-50 stocks from a customized ocean engagement universe
- The ability to engage through an active representation of shareholders’ rights is considered throughout the entire investment process, utilizing thematic ocean expertise from The Ocean Foundation
- One of the innovative features of the fund is the engagement and investment alongside three key ocean themes: Pollution Prevention, Carbon Transition, and Ocean Conservation.
The ocean is a crucial – but often underestimated – component for a healthy planet. Other
than creating livelihoods for billions of people and being a source of natural beauty, the
ocean serves as a tremendous asset to climate change mitigation, absorbing 93% of climate
heat and sequestering 25% of global CO2 emissions. Today human activities such as energy
production, deforestation, maritime transport, and intensive livestock farming pose a severe
threat to ocean health. Half of the Great Barrier Reef has died since 2016 yet coral reefs are
worth $36 billion to the global economy[[“Engaging for a Blue Economy”, Credit Suisse, September 2020]].
Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of Sustainability Strategy
Advisory and Finance (SSAF) at Credit Suisse, highlighted the expected broad appeal of this
fund: “The ocean is amongst some of the least invested topics from the UN Sustainability
Goals yet more than a third of institutional investors have expressed their interest in
investing in the Blue Economy. We are happy to be leading the way to help investors to have
an impact”.
Casey Clark, Rockefeller’s Global Head of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
Investments and Co-Portfolio Manager of the fund, notes: “Constructive shareholder
engagement is a longstanding and core part of Rockefeller Asset Management’s investment
process in our pursuit to create shareholder value and catalyze positive change. We are
excited about the interest in the fund and the opportunity to partner with Credit Suisse on
this innovative solution which we hope will encourage others to increase their focus on the
Blue Economy.”
Credit Suisse and Rockefeller Asset Management, the investment management division of
Rockefeller Capital Management, with input from The Ocean Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to
conserving ocean environments around the world, will seek to jointly advise and steer portfolio
companies away from ocean-harming practices, through dialogue with their management teams.
The Credit Suisse Rockefeller Ocean Engagement Fund provides a distinct opportunity for
investors, with investments as small as USD 100, to steer companies in the portfolio towards
improving their ocean harming practices. The fund remains available for investment on a
daily basis after the subscription. The objective is to seek higher financial returns while
helping companies to, for example, transition away from plastic pollution, mitigate sea level
rise, mitigate ocean acidification and help improve sustainable fishing practices.
Investment decisions for the fund will be driven by the belief that the industry is increasingly
differentiating between “best-in-class” companies and companies showing the greatest
improvements in their overall ESG footprint. In this fund, improvement is in the context of
ocean health. “Improvers” tend to be the most undervalued and provide investors with the
highest potential to generate alpha. Identifying companies in this space and using
shareholder engagement can further catalyze change.
Credit Suisse has been a pioneer in the area of sustainable and impact investing for more
than 18 years. The recent creation of the Sustainability, Research & Investment Solutions
(SRI), an Executive Board-level function, embeds sustainability at the core of Credit Suisse’s
operations and strategy. To this end, the Credit Suisse Rockefeller Ocean Engagement Fund
builds on other important sustainability product launches in recent years, including the
Responsible Consumer Fund, as well as the Supertrends long-term investment themes which
include Millennials’ Values and Climate Change – Decarbonizing the Economy.
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