Wealth Management Responsible Investing Process

Responsible Investing Process

Riverwater Partners believes Responsible Investing is in the best interest of our clients, our firm, our communities, and our society. Therefore, we integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies, practices, and outcomes, alongside more traditional investment criteria such as risk-adjusted returns and the tenure of portfolio managers when we evaluate potential external investment managers. For more information, please refer to our External Manager ESG Policy.

In some cases as part of our customized advisory approach, we may recommend non-ESG investments.

Riverwater Select List

The Riverwater Select List is a list of approved managers and funds that have completed a rigorous due diligence process. Our Select List of external managers have integrated ESG into the research and investment process, have robust reporting, and strong proxy voting and engagement records.

These are the first investments we use to populate client portfolios.

Due Diligence

The first step in our external manager ESG due diligence process is to identify the level of ESG integration. Products that do not utilize any type of ESG criteria in their investment process will be excluded from the Riverwater Select List.

In our analysis of each manager’s integration of ESG, we look at:

Integration of ESG into the investment process
Updates on ESG resources within the firm
Engagement Policies
Proxy voting policies
Public policy advocacy
Tracking of ESG related activities
Key progress toward improvement on sustainability outcomes