Investing in resilience

Nuveen Private Markets Impact Investing Annual Report 2020

Highlights

• Since 2012, Nuveen has managed a globally diversified impact investing portfolio that focuses on private equity and real estate across three impact verticals: inclusive growth, resource efficiency and affordable housing. 
• Our capital solutions aim to create tangible, measurable social and environmental impacts, as well as risk-adjusted financial returns for investors. This report illuminates the results that this kind of focused intentionality can produce.
• In 2019/2020, our impact investing portfolio reached 193 million low-income borrowers, patients, students, farmers and tenants, representing 72% of all clients served during the reporting period.
• Our capital also contributed to developments in energy storage, recycling and sustainable building materials, ultimately resulting in 1.4 million MT of GHG emissions reductions and 268,000 tons of waste recycled.

Our impact on people & planet

We’ve made a material step toward important social and environmental goals, like the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And despite our progress, we’ve only just scratched the surface. There is so much more work to do, and we’re committed to demonstrating that our capital can be put to work to deliver meaningful impact for people and planet. 

A focus on climate change

We invest in climate change mitigation, support climate vulnerable populations, engage our portfolio companies to improve resource efficiency, and help our clients meet their climate and carbon goals.

•   Climate change mitigation: Technological advances create opportunities to improve resource efficiency and reduce carbon intensity in production processes and supply chains. We invest in companies that have a direct and substantial contribution to climate change mitigation, in alignment with the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance. From affordable energy storage to sustainable building materials, our investments help traditional sectors transition to a low-carbon future.
•   Climate vulnerable populations: While all people are affected by climate change, the poorest populations are the most exposed. Climate change could result in more than 100 million additional people living in poverty by 2030.¹ We invest to build social resilience to climate change among low-income communities globally. We do this by financing climate-smart agriculture, investing in disease prevention, helping families save for a rainy day, and alleviating rent burden.
•   Portfolio carbon footprint: All companies should explore opportunities to reduce carbon emissions intensity over time — it’s not only good for the environment, it’s good business. We work with our portfolio companies to identify cost-effective opportunities to reduce carbon intensity, for example through energy efficiency improvements or switching to cleaner fuel sources. Every little bit helps to get us closer to achieving the targets set out by the Paris Agreement.

A focus on ‘net impact’

Nuveen believes that all investments have the potential for both positive and negative impact — even impact investments. We strive to reflect that reality in what we measure and what we report, but it’s not always easy — especially when you lack good quality data. That’s why we’ve created the Net Impact Score — a management tool that helps investors understand and compare investments based on their net effects on people and planet, aligned with the UN SDGs.

Score investments on positive or negative alignment with the UN SDGs

Investments are scored for potential positive or negative alignment with each of the UN SDGs, gaining or losing points based on whether the impact is intentional (i.e., impact investing) or an externality (i.e., ESG integration). The sum of all SDG-scores is the investment’s Net Impact Score, and the portfolio-level score is the weighted average of all investments’ Net Impact Scores. Below is an example of Samunnati’s net impact score.