Global Sustainable Total Return Bond Strategy: Reporting on the impact of our investment decisions 2022

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A Letter of Introduction From The Portfolio Managers

Our 2022 impact report builds on our commitment to measuring, documenting and communicating the outcomes that our strategy produces for our clients. We firmly believe that there does not have to be a trade-off between strong performance and smart investments that help address global sustainability challenges.

The report includes a review of how we conduct and use ESG research to drive returns, and how we think the investments in our portfolio are helping to create positive environmental and social outcomes. We also discuss how we engage with issuers—sometimes for ESG due diligence, sometimes for impact and other times in an advisory capacity with issuers seeking guidance or feedback on structuring labeled bond offerings. Further, we discuss our participation in the broader sustainable investing community; collaboration helps us enhance our knowledge, and provides us the opportunity to help maintain positive and credible momentum in this space alongside many other stakeholders.

While the availability of ESG data across various asset types in fixed income is improving over time, the quality and standardisation of data continues to be a challenge. Despite this, since the inception of this strategy in 2022, we have been dedicated to assessing material ESG risks and sustainable opportunities within every investment we consider. To help our clients better understand how we integrate ESG and how that manifests itself across all fixed income sectors, this year, we published a focused, fixed income supplement to our firm’s institutional sustainable investment policy.

This year, we also added additional sector expertise to our ESG and fundamental research teams, to support our growing global sustainable fixed income platform. As always, we thank our teammates for their continued collaboration and tireless efforts to ensure that our investment decisions are informed by trustworthy data and analysis.

It has been incredibly rewarding to see the evolution in sustainable fixed income, and much has changed in this space since Brown Advisory launched our first strategies nearly a decade ago. We have seen firsthand how global crises have shone a bright spotlight on sustainable investing, revealing both positives and negatives about how it is broadly practiced. Despite regional differences in its implementation and regulatory scrutiny that has accompanied the recent rise of sustainable investing, the demand for investments that are augmented with ESG research continues to grow. We think this is at least in part due to growing awareness that public-market capital needs to be aligned to address the massive sustainability challenges the world faces today.

Despite the rapid changes occurring within this space, we have not altered our investment process, and we remain committed to our focus on both performance and impact. We hope you find this report informative and we welcome a conversation with you about the work we are doing.

Sincerely,

^{*Brown Advisory entities included are: Brown Advisory LLC, Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Company, Brown Advisory Ltd., and Brown Advisory Trust Company of Delaware, LLC.}