BNY Mellon offers sustainability insight with EM debt impact fund

BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched the Responsible Horizons EM Debt Impact Fund. Managed by Insight Investment (which is part of BNY Mellon Investment Management), the fund has satisfied the requirements of Article 9 of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR).

The fund invests in emerging market debt “impact” investments, targeting a positive, measurable social and/or environmental impact alongside a financial return.

It identifies securities and issuers which it expects to have a positive incremental impact in the context of the themes of people, planet and prosperity, each of which are mapped to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and EU taxonomy.

The fund will consist mainly of impact bonds while including impact issuers and improving issuers. With the exception of some held for hedging and liquidity purposes, these securities must pass Insight Investment’s impact assessment framework.

Portfolio Manager Simon Cooke, who leads the fund, said: “Investors serious about impact cannot ignore emerging markets. They face some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges globally.

“They also offer an increasingly diversified, rapidly-growing impact universe, particularly within the corporate debt space. We seek to identify what we believe to be the ‘best ideas’ from that universe to combine a structural yield premium with scope to deliver long-term positive change.”