The Investment Leaders Group (ILG) is a global network of pension funds, insurers and asset managers, with over $9 trillion under management and advice. The group is committed in its mission to advance the practice of responsible investment.The ILG is a voluntary initiative, driven by its members, facilitated by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and supported by academics in the University of Cambridge. |
Decisions and positions of the group do not represent the policies or positions of CISL or of the wider University of Cambridge.
Vision
The ILG´s vision is an investment chain in which economic, social and environmental sustainability are delivered as an outcome of the investment process as investors go about generating robust, long-term returns. Read more about the Value of Responsible Investment here.
ILG objectives and outcomes
Our projects...Are leading edge and innovation focusedConnect to change in the real economyLeverage a unique pre-competitive environment |
Helping to ...Decarbonise the global economyProtect and restore natureSupport inclusive and resilient societies |
By ensuring that..Capital acts for the long termCapital is priced according to the true cost of business activitiesFinancial structures better serve sustainable business |
Our activities drive impact by
- Providing unique access to world-class University of Cambridge research and academic excellence
- Internal capacity building and knowledge generation as projects are developed and adopted within member organisations
- Designing tools and services that provide commercial benefit for members and enhance best practice across the market
- Two-way dialogue and network engagement with CISL’s sustainable finance, corporate and policy communities
Areas of focus
Measuring sustainable investment impactsThe Sustainable Investment Framework offers a set of impact metrics that translate the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into measurable indicators that can be calculable, easily understood and implementable by members. |
Promoting long-termismThe ILG has developed a toolkit for investors aiming to design investment mandates to help shift the investment chain towards responsible, long-term value creation. Central to the toolkit is a checklist which allows asset owners and retail clients to assess a fund's long-term orientation and enables asset managers to review their own performance. |
Understanding consumer preferences and behavioursThe ILG, together with Cambridge academics from the Department of Psychology developed a Virtual Investment Experiment (VIE), to test investor preferences as to how they trade off financial performance against impact. |
Risk and resilienceOur research in this area aims to empower investors to understand how shifts in market sentiment induced by awareness of how present and future environmental risks could affect global financial markets in the short term. |
Meet the team
Elizabeth Clark
Programme Manager
Sara Taaffe
Senior Project Manager
Dr Iftekhar Ahmed
Senior Project Manager
Emily Hamm
Project Co-ordinator
What our members say about the ILG
"Membership of CISL’s Investment Leaders Group delivers a powerful sweet spot that connects an impressive network of leading investment industry practitioners with first class academia and research specialists."
John Belgrove, Chair of ILG Senior Sponsors group and Director of Future Thinking, Aon
"We find the ILG’s mandate to provide member-driven, solution based outputs backed by world class academic expertise helps its members navigate sustainable investment challenges and makes for a very powerful combination."
Will Oulton, Chair, ILG Working Group, Global Head of Responsible Investment
"The ILG provides UBP with a valuable conduit of strong academic research covering broad areas within sustainability originating from a well-resourced, impressively connected institution in CISL, that has specialised in this important area for over 30 years. Much of what we learn from this body would be difficult to replicate from other sources. Furthermore, the opportunity to share approaches to sustainability within a forum of asset owners and investment managers shapes and enhances UBP’s own efforts and through collaboration, magnifies the impact we could hope to achieve alone."
Victoria Leggett, Head of Impact Investing, Union Bancaire Privée
Latest
Integrating climate and nature: The rationale for financial institutions
26 September 2022
27 September 2022 – Building on the nature-related financial risks collaboration between the Banking Environment Initiative (BEI) and Investment Leaders Group (ILG), CISL has published a new report detailing the importance of an integrated approach to addressing environmental challenges, encompassing climate and other nature-related issues.
Investing in quality jobs for a just transition
13 September 2022
22 September - Building on the ILG's Sustainable Investment Framework, the group have published two reports exploring the key concepts, initiatives, and investment impacts on decent work. This paves the way for the development of a simple, robust, and transparent metric for investors to measure and report both the quantitative and qualitative information about their investment impacts on decent work.
Integrating Nature: The case for action on nature-related financial risks
5 April 2022
7 April 2022 – The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) in collaboration with banks and investment managers has detailed the case for integrating nature-related risks into financial decisions. Nature loss poses highly material financial risks If nature is not...
Understanding the climate performance of investment funds
29 July 2021
29 July 2021 – Understanding the climate performance of investment funds should be made simple to all investors. Analysis from CISL’s Investment Leaders Group (ILG) found that the present disclosure of fund performance does not allow investors to understand and compare the alignment of funds with the Paris Agreement on climate change. The latest reports from the group now provides a tour of the assumptions and approaches behind existing methods, and introduces a simple and transparent disclosure method that enables investment managers to report the alignment of their portfolios with the Paris ambition.
Handbook for Nature-related Financial Risks: Key concepts and a framework for identification
6 July 2021
1 March 2021 – The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) has published a handbook for understanding and identifying nature-related financial risks.
Manulife Investment Management becomes newest member of CISL’s Investment Leaders Group
9 October 2020
9 October 2020 – Manulife Investment Management is the latest organisation to join the Investment Leaders Group (ILG), a voluntary member initiative striving to create an investment chain that prioritises economic, social and environmental sustainability. The ILG is convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
Robeco becomes newest member of CISL’s Investment Leaders Group
20 July 2020
23 July 2020 – Robeco is the latest organisation to join the Investment Leaders Group (ILG), a voluntary member initiative striving to create an investment chain that prioritises economic, social and environmental sustainability. The ILG is convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
Walking the talk: Understanding consumer demand for sustainable investing
14 October 2019
22 October 2019 – This study, commissioned by the Investment Leaders Group (ILG), provides insight into how decision-making behavior is influenced by the availability of information on the environmental and social impact of funds alongside standard financial data.
19 March 2019
20 March 2019 – The Investment Leaders Group found that the data necessary to enable institutional and retail investors to assess the long-term orientation of the investment funds is not currently available.
Applying the Long View to Investment Funds: Introducing the Long-term Disclosure Framework
11 March 2019
March 2019 – The Investment Leaders Group (ILG) has developed an original framework that can be used by institutional and retail investors, and by their advisors, to assess the long-term orientation of the investment funds that they are being offered.
