Welcome to the Little Sustainable Investor

Welcome to the Little Sustainable Investor and my first blog post! My name is Vanessa Cheung and I am very excited to share with you my thoughts and emerging themes in sustainable investing.

How did I get interested in sustainability?

I first got interested in sustainability when I was an Equity Research analyst covering the Paper & Packaging and Building Products sector. It was very interesting to analyse a diverse group of companies in different industries, ranging from paper, metal, plastics, to cement, each with a different manufacturing process and impact on the environment. It was a time when ESG investing starting to become popular and increasingly being discussed by investors. Through conducting in-depth research and engaging in discussions with both investors and companies, I started to think about questions such as:

• Can packaging be sustainable?
• How can we transition towards a low carbon society?
• How can the financial industry contribute to accelerate the shift towards sustainability?

As my interest in sustainability grew, I eventually decided to join a wood science technology company in business development, helping the company to expand globally.

Why am I writing this blog?

My passion for investing remains after I left the financial industry. As entrepreneurs and businesses are finding solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems, I believe the financial industry and the public equity market have a crucial role to play in allocating capital and influencing companies to accelerate changes. As an individual investor, apart from aligning our investments with our values, sustainable investing can potentially yield a higher return by enabling us to participate in high growth sectors and mitigate risks.

The main goal of this website and blog is to provide a platform to discuss and raise awareness on sustainable investing. Sustainable investing can be confusing at first with many jargon and conflicting messages. In fact, a survey by the UK government suggests that 68% of people would opt-in for sustainable investing if given the choice, but only 13% of people currently hold a sustainable investment. Lack of information and knowledge are cited as the key reasons why investors are unlikely to switch to sustainable investing at this point.

Plan for the future

There is no doubt that sustainable investing is a very broad area with many sub-themes worth exploring, including poverty, climate change, education, and many more. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are often used as a framework to think about how we can target our actions to achieve a better future. My plan is to explore different themes that are linked to the SDGs and consider companies and investment opportunities that contribute to these themes.

Originally published at https://littlesustainableinvestor.com on January 23, 2021.