Claire Smith, founder of humane investment platform Beyond Investing, has been named “INVESTMENT LEADER OF THE YEAR” in the Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards 2022.
Judges highlighted her “long standing commitment to action,” and “impressive accomplishments” in spearheading vegan investment funds and providing early-stage financing for animal alternatives start-ups.
The Environmental Finance award recognises the trailblazing work of Claire and the team in developing robust policies for the creation of vegan indexes and tracker funds, as well as pioneering high impact venture investing in animal alternatives.
Claire conceived of Beyond Investing in 2017, as a means of combining her passion for animals and the environment with her investment knowledge, partnering with ESG fund manager Larry Abele and ethical screening expert Lee Coates to provide animal-friendly investment solutions for vegans and environmentalists alike.
That same year, Claire also launched Beyond Impact to make venture investments in companies whose products replace the use of animals and in 2018 co-founded the Beyond Animal networking and funding app to help more vegan companies secure capital from investors.
In a landmark year, Beyond Investing expanded its index offerings to encompass Global, Europe and International versions of its Vegan Climate Index® to complement its US Vegan Climate Index®, the first ever cruelty-free stock market index, launched in 2018.
Beyond Investing launched the US Vegan Climate ETF (ticker: VEGN) the first ever vegan-screened ETF on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019.
Beyond Investing imposes strict anti-animal exploitation exclusions as well as other more standard ESG (environmental, social and governance) factors such as fossil fuel, deforestation, weapons, guns, tobacco and decarbonisation to create a vegan and environmentally-friendly alternative to large cap stock indexes.
Beyond Investing’s indexes support the achievement of 11 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, across themes of hunger, sustainability, climate, biodiversity, health, water, work, clean energy and gender equality.
According to metrics produced by Impact-Cubed, companies in our US Vegan Climate Index have an 83% lower carbon footprint, 98% lower waste generation and 93% less water consumption than companies in the benchmark S&P500 Index.
Following two years of scouring the world for suitable candidates, last June Beyond Investing also launched the Vegan World Index®, a global index of small to mid-cap growth istocks producing plant-based and cruelty-free products, and made an investible Certificate available which is listed on the Swiss SIX Structured Products exchange.
Three new venture capital programs were launched by Beyond Impact, to invest in early stage growth globally and continue to seed high potential start-ups in the UK and the US led by diverse groups of founders.
Beyond Impact is a pioneering investor in the alternative protein space, putting money into the earliest rounds of numerous companies in cultivated meat, synthetic biology and plant-based brands, who have since gone on to raise 100s of millions of dollars.
Finally, the Beyond Animal app was released on the AppStore and Google PlayStore making its interactive networking, online conferencing and comprehensive resources for the plant-based ecosystem of companies instantly available at your fingertips.
As well as presenting groundbreaking conferences like the multiple region New Food Invest, in collaboration with ProVeg and two days of pitching at the Plant Based World Expo in London, it has connected companies with investors in its private dealroom, Funding by Beyond Animal.
Reproduced from original information by Beyond Investing
About Beyond Investing
Beyond Investing is a vegan investment platform comprising Beyond Investing, a US-based registered investment advisor, Beyond Advisors, a Jersey-based research firm, Beyond Impact Advisors a Swiss-based investment advisor and Beyond Animal a Swiss-based technology company. It was founded by three experienced investment professionals who follow a vegan lifestyle: CEO Claire Smith who has 35 years’ experience working in the finance industry at UBS and Albourne Partners Limited; Lee Coates OBE, OBE, of UK consultant ESG Accord and founder of Cruelty Free Super in Australia; and Larry Abele, founder of Impact-Cubed, an FCA-regulated asset manager recognized for its leadership in ESG research and investing.
