A Return on Your Money — and the Issues You Want to Impact
Investing can do more than build personal wealth. It can be a powerful tool to improve the world we live in. At Laird Norton Wealth Management (LNWM), we believe you can achieve both. We call the intersection between your financial and non-financial objectives impact investing.
There are many different ways to invest for impact, including ESG (integrating environmental, social and governance criteria into investment decisions), socially responsible investing (SRI), thematic investing, and catalytic investing. Regardless of which strategies will work best for you (could be one or many), they all serve a bigger purpose: activating your portfolio to achieve your financial goals while prioritizing the environmental and social issues you care about most and addressing them in a positive way.
Social & Environmental Goals Are Entwined with Our Mission
Our founders and owners (the Laird and Norton families) were early practitioners of impact investing and the Laird Norton Family Foundation (LNFF) is now well on its way toward being 100% invested in impact-focused funds and projects.
We apply the successes and lessons learned from those endeavors to your own social and environmental aspirations. And we continue to invest heavily in expanding our capabilities, recently merging with San Francisco-based Wetherby Asset Management, an early adopter of impact investing across nearly all asset classes and sustainability themes, to better serve your goals and impact intentions.
Choose Your Impact
Your Goals/Our Expertise: We help you crystallize and prioritize the social and environmental challenges you want to address in context of your overall wealth plan, which we design to achieve both your financial and non-financial goals.
Impact sectors are often inter-related and can include clean energy/climate change, resource sustainability, and creating opportunity for more people through investments that promote diversity equity & inclusion (DEI) and improved access to quality education, affordable housing, health and financial services.
Total Portfolio Approach: Your impact objectives are not separated from your financial goals. We create portfolios that work on both levels – impact and financial return – using a variety of asset classes in both the public and private markets (private equity and ventures capital, private debt and real assets). From bonds issued by community development finance institutions (CDFIs) to clean energy equity funds, we calibrate risk/return/impact in line with your unique needs and aspirations.
Journey We Take Together: We guide you through the shifting landscape of impact investment opportunities, while sharing our own learning and client best practices. As a result, your strategy can evolve over time to reflect new opportunities and developments at the forefront of impact investing.
Built-in Monitoring and Reporting: We provide in-depth, customized impact reporting on your impact investment strategy. We monitor your investments and check with you regularly on changes to your impact goals.
LNWM IMPACT INVESTING PRINCIPLES
We seek to identify those opportunities where the impact strategy drives investment value.
No Compromises
We believe that impact investing can serve to reduce risk and/or enhance returns. It does not require us to accept a sub-par risk/return profile.
Sustainable Perspective
We seek investments that prioritize long-term sustainable outcomes by maximizing the regenerative nature of environmental resources and minimizing resource depletion.
Holistic Alignment
We hold ourselves and the asset managers we work with to best-in-practice environmental, social and governance standards.
Impact Management
We think impact measurement and management can be used to improve both impact and financial returns over time. We seek to deepen our collective impact by using our investor voice to support progress.
Evolution
We do not believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good; we believe in getting started and pushing to broaden and deepen impact as the market evolves.
Our Commitment to Sustainability
In our business operations, we are committed to creating shared value for all our stakeholders (clients, owners, employees, communities) while implementing sustainable practices. For example, Laird Norton Wealth Management annually tracks the carbon output of its operations, including employee commutes, and actively tries to reduce that impact by encouraging use of public transportation.
We financially support programs in both water and electricity conservation undertaken by utilities and non-profit organizations, such as the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
We stay current on impact and socially responsible investing trends by participating in networks such as the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF), comprised of investment managers, research firms, nonprofits, pension funds and other asset owners working to advance sustainable, responsible and impact investing across all asset classes.
Guide to Impact Investing at LNWM
How we can help you mobilize your investment capital to address some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.
Learn About Targeted Impact Investing at LNWM
How we worked with Calvert Research & Management to create two new ways to invest for social impact, plus our new environmental investing solution. The reason: “We are after positive change, not just companies with top ESG ratings.”
