UOB Asset Management (UOBAM) has launched the United Smart Sustainable Singapore Bond Fund.
This fund is described as the first Singapore-focused fund aimed at helping individual and institutional investors contribute to the nation’s sustainability drive.
The fund will invest its assets in high-quality green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) mandates.
As part of Budget 2021, the Singapore Government announced it would finance up to $19 billion of public sector infrastructure projects through green bond issuances, which means there are plenty of bonds for the fund’s managers to choose from.
On the other hand, investors are increasingly keen to in ESG investments, with nine in 10 people expect sustainable investments to become more common in the next three to five years, according to the recent UOB ASEAN Consumer Sentiment Study.
“Investing for profit and purpose is one of our key tenets at UOBAM,” says Thio Boon Kiat, group CEO of UOBAM.
“It is also the core motivation of our United Smart Sustainable Singapore Bond Fund, the first ESG fund that enables investors to participate in the shaping of a sustainable Singapore for future generations.
“As we help steer capital to sustainable investments, we believe we can also help investors benefit from stable income and capital appreciation, so that they can realise both profit and purpose,” he adds.
Most of the fund’s assets will be allocated to holding bonds in Singapore and other Asia corporate bonds.
UOBAM plans to tap technology to help clients identify investments and to track and measure ESG impact.
To help investors better understand the Fund’s sustainability performance, UOBAM has also created an online impact dashboard that displays the portfolio’s quantitative ESG indicators.
For example, the overall ESG score is measured against the JP Morgan ESG Asia Credit Index , carbon intensity and reduction target, energy / water / waste intensity and supply chain environmental cost intensity.
The dashboard also shows investors the sustainability impact from the investments made through the fund in comparison with the JESG JACI.
For instance, every $1 million of revenue generated by the fund equates to 86 megawatt-hours less in energy consumption compared with the index. To put this into better perspective, this difference can be used to power 261 three-room HDB flats for a month.
Investing in this fund starts at either $1,000 or US$1,000.
Photo: The Edge Singapore
