A Letter of Introduction From The Portfolio Managers

At Brown Advisory, we are deeply committed to sustainable investing. Our firm managed more than $16 billion* in client assets under various sustainable investment mandates for individuals, families and institutions, as of Dec. 31, 2020. We firmly believe that there does not have to be a trade-off between strong performance and smart investments that help address society’s trickiest sustainability challenges. 

For a number of our sustainable investment strategies, we issue formal reports each year to keep clients informed about how those strategies are generating positive impact. Enclosed is our 2020 Impact Report for the Sustainable Core Fixed Income strategy.

This report includes a review of how we conduct and use ESG research, and how the investments in our portfolio are creating positive environmental and social outcomes—with a particular focus on racial injustice and the COVID-19 pandemic, two momentous challenges at the forefront of our minds in 2020. We also discuss how we engage with issuers—sometimes for ESG due diligence and impact purposes, other times in an advisory capacity with issuers seeking guidance on structuring labeled bond offerings—and how we participate in the broader sustainable investing community.

We are pleased to report continued progress and advancement of our sustainable investment initiatives at the firm. To support the rapid growth of sustainable investing at our firm, we named Carey Taylor as the new head of the sustainable investing business at the firm, and also added Angela Wilson and Danny Trocchia as new ESG research analysts and Sarah Yang as a new sustainable investing business analyst. We published policy documents covering our institutional approach to sustainable investing and engagement, as well as a summary document that describes our firm’s formal proxy voting policy. We remain focused on developing helpful client-focused reporting, with recent developments including impact reporting tools for our fixed income strategies and for our private client portfolios. 

As always, we thank our fundamental and ESG research teams, who work tirelessly to ensure that our investment decisions are informed by trustworthy ESG data, and by clear viewpoints about what we can infer from that data. Additionally, we thank all of our colleagues across the firm for embracing sustainable investing principles so enthusiastically, and most importantly our clients for entrusting us with their capital.

We hope you find this report informative, and we welcome a conversation with you about the work we are doing.

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Sincerely,

 

Tom Graff, CFA
Portfolio Manager
 

Amy Hauter, CFA
Portfolio Manager

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Brown Advisory entities included are: Brown Advisory LLC, Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Company, Brown Advisory Ltd. and Brown Advisory Trust Company of Delaware, LLC.