Sustainability at Ferd

About sustainability

The World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Sustainable development rests on three pillars: economic growth, social equality and environmental protection. The core to sustainable development is the necessity of addressing these three pillars as a whole. Financial, social and environmental considerations are inextricably linked. All three must be satisfactorily addressed, across the globe.

Ferd’s vision and sustainability

Ferd’s vision is to create enduring value and leave clear footprints. This vision describes what everyone at Ferd strives to achieve.

Put simply, creating enduring value and leaving clear footprints is a question of creating a return from multiple perspectives – not just from a financial perspective. It is about creating and developing companies, investment teams, organisations and changes that lead to progress for both individuals and society as a whole.

It is about having a positive impact that can be both felt and measured. Ferd has been doing this for a long time, both through our work as an active owner and investor and through initiatives such as our work with social entrepreneurs and the Nordic Microfinance Initiative.

The principles behind our sustainability work

We base our sustainability work on the following initiatives and principles:

• The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the world’s shared blueprint for sustainable development.
• The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a network of investors that works to create a sustainable financial system for long-term value creation.
• The UN’s Global Compact, globally accepted norms for what represents good business conduct.
• Ferd assesses all its investments against the Government Pension Fund Global Guidelines for Observation and Exclusion from the Fund.

Our sustainability guidelines

We have produced some sustainability guidelines on the basis of Ferd’s vision and values and strategy to guide us in our day-to-day work.