Frequently asked questions

Tribe is the UK’s first dedicated impact wealth manager. 100% of Tribe’s investments are sustainable. We only run portfolios for positive, sustainable impact. While some wealth managers offer impact investing as a small part of a broader portfolio, we invest solely in businesses working for the benefit of society and the planet.

We’ve been running our sustainable impact MPS since inception – November 2016. We approached the FCA prior to authorisation and explained to them we’d be talking to our clients about both financial and environmental/social outcomes from their portfolio. As a result, they invited us into their “innovation hub”, where they were able to scrutinise our sustainable investment analysis and reporting. We’ve been actively engaged with the regulator and their initiatives in sustainable investing ever since.

Sustainability is at the core of everything we do, from our mission as a business, to our operations, through to our offering to our clients. We’re a Certified B Corporation and in September 2019 we were one of the first wealth managers globally to declare a net zero target across our Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions by 2030.

We partner with advisers with the aim of helping them protect and grow their businesses by providing the most suitable sustainable solution for their clients. Whether it’s an adviser’s first interaction with impact investing or they’ve been on the journey for a while – we provide brochures, factsheets, webinars, events and more to ensure our advisers are equipped to speak confidently to their clients about investing their capital for the change they want to see in the world. 

No, we don’t offer financial planning at Tribe. We focus solely on impact wealth management. We work with our advisers to offer a sustainable impact MPS solution for people wanting to generate positive impact with their invested wealth. 

As the UK’s first dedicated impact wealth manager, advisers are assured the sustainable MPS they’re providing their clients is authentic. At Tribe, every investment is assessed for both financial performance and the ability to deliver long term positive impact – the potential monetary returns it may deliver, as well as its social, economic and environmental outcomes. We call this our twin-lens approach. We provide advisers with monthly market and impact stock stories, annual sustainability report and regular opinion and thought leadership on investment and impact topics. We also offer a diverse events programme from informal lunch and learns to co-hosted webinars with our extended network.  

Our investment philosophy centres on the belief that a long-term focus across all asset classes will deliver the most favourable returns for investors, as well as people and planet. We therefore look for well-run businesses solving big social, environmental and economic challenges. These are businesses we believe will succeed in the future and aren’t just aware of the ESG risks in their operations, but are actively looking to maximise the opportunities in them. Beyond the business operations, their products/services are actively addressing major global challenges. We’re able to identify these businesses using the UN SDGs – the “north star” of our investment framework.

We use actively managed, daily traded, liquid UCITS strategies in the SIMPS model portfolios.  All funds in the SIMPS are selected by our investment and impact teams based on their financial merits and positive social and environmental abilities. We believe active management is the most effective approach for risk management and sustainable impact identification. Passive strategies tend to rely on third party data, have low stakeholder engagement and action on important company disclosures, and can be limited by blind index tracking.

The SIMPS strategy is based on actively managed asset allocation across equities, fixed income, alternatives and cash. The portfolios aim to achieve capital appreciation whilst reducing investment risk via a diversified, multi asset class portfolio. This is similar to many other MPS offerings. Where we differ is we only invest in funds which align with our investment philosophy; businesses that avoid controversies, are well run and are working to solve global challenges.  

The SIMPS strategy is based on actively managed asset allocation across equities, fixed income, alternatives and cash. Each underlying holding in all the third-party funds we hold has been approved by our impact investment team. Each fund is assessed via our impact investment scorecard. First quantitative performance is assessed – SDG alignment and stewardship potential alongside business quality and growth outlook. Then qualified securities undergo qualitative analysis across key areas including people, place, philosophy, process, portfolio positioning and risk management. We look for well-run companies whose operations, products and services are providing solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.

At Tribe, every investment is assessed for both financial performance and the ability to deliver
long term positive impact. We call this our ‘twin-lens approach’. Only investments that meet our stringent investment and impact principles and criteria make it into portfolios. All investments on our approved list have been carefully assessed for both financial returns and their impact on both society and the environment.

This isn’t just about negative screens; it doesn’t simply mean ruling out investing in companies with bad practices. Instead, our approach takes a much more detailed view of which opportunities may have
a positive impact and generate financial returns.

These due diligence processes — of investment and impact — run together in parallel to understand the merits and/or potential risks of an investment. This approach allows us to ensure that the long-term impact goals of the people who invest with us are being met alongside their financial ones.

We consistently work with our fund managers to improve impact performance and reporting. We review all underlying holdings quarterly alongside our active fund impact performance review process which investigates both the positive and negative potential for impact embedded in our fund universe. This active review process allows us to compare potential impact trade-offs within our funds and is useful for follow-up engagement with our fund managers. More on our ownership and engagement can be found in our annual sustainability reports. 

We use Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria as a starting point to assess the risks within a company and its core products/services, whilst screening out companies involved in serious controversies. We then go beyond a company’s ESG rating with an in-depth fund manager due diligence process that provides us with information on each fund’s strategy, performance and engagement with their holdings. Every fund manager we work with has exclusion policies in place to minimise exposure to controversial industries. We track the underlying fund holdings closely to ensure these policies are being observed and we’re made aware of any issues.   

We have 0% direct exposure to alcohol, armaments, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, genetically modified organism (GMO) crops and coal, oil and gas extraction. We hold small tolerance levels for indirect exposure to some controversial activities, like oil and gas, if the underlying companies have credible transition plans and are making progress towards a low carbon transition. Please see our – how we manage exposures to controversial activities factsheet for more information.

We don’t invest in oil and gas companies. We don’t tolerate any direct upstream or midstream oil production and refining. Regarding indirect exposure, power generation from oil is tolerated if the underlying companies have credible plans and are making progress towards a low carbon transition. You can read more in our – how we manage exposures to controversial activities factsheet.

We engage with fund managers on their impact measurement and reporting metrics, their investment policies, exposure to controversial industries, as well as their approach to proxy voting and climate/ESG related resolutions. We report on our fund engagement in our annual SDG performance report. 

We report on portfolio SDG alignment, carbon measures, as well as impact metrics including healthcare, financial services, renewable energy, jobs, waste and gender. We don’t use impact calculators or extrapolate our data – we only report on what we can evidence.