CUSP/CES Seminar with Dr Peter Michaelis

Twenty years of sustainable investment—Rising through ridicule and resistance to relevance

Online | 12 May 2022, 1-2pm (BST)

Today it seems every financial institution is promoting their sustainability: aligning their products with decarbonisation targets and claiming to invest in companies with a positive purpose. It was not always so.

Over 20 years Peter Michaelis has managed sustainable funds and has led one of the leading sustainable investment teams in the UK. He will talk about his experiences over these two decades: what changed to allow the broad acceptance this type of investment now has; the stormy corporate waters the team has had to navigate; and the concerns he has about over-reliance on this approach as the solution to meeting all the sustainable development goals.

About

Peter Michaelis was one of the early post graduates drafted into the newly formed Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey. This followed an MSc in Environmental Engineering at Sussex University and a BA in Physics from Oxford University. His PhD, awarded in 1997 and aided by the patient guidance of Tim Jackson, focused on the optimisation of the steel life cycle from a thermodynamic perspective. The understanding gained from this research remains very relevant to his approach to sustainable investment today.

Peter is currently head of the Sustainable Investment team at Liontrust who manage over £10bn in equities and fixed income products on behalf of individuals and institutions. Their aim is to deliver superior returns by investing in sustainable companies—those helping to make our world cleaner, healthier and safer.

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