- Impact Measurement & Management Practice Leader
France, Intermediary
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An early mover in public-market impact investing, Wellington launched our first impact strategy in 2015 and joined the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) a year later. We have continuously evolved to stay aligned with current best practices ever since. Our commitment to ongoing improvement led us to independently verify that the impact investing processes of our Global Impact Equity and Global Impact Bond strategies (with combined assets under management of US$3.8 billion1) align with industry standards.
BlueMark, the leading provider of independent impact verification and intelligence for the sustainable and impact investing market, verified our practices. BlueMark assessed our practices against the GIIN’s impact principles — a commonly recognized standard for impact investors, who aim to deliver market-rate financial returns alongside measurable social and environmental impact.
We are thrilled to share our strong results, having earned an “advanced” or “high” rating in eight out of nine practice areas. Specifically, BlueMark:
- Highlighted our granular, bottom-up, integrated approach to impact diligence.
- Acknowledged strong collaboration among various teams across our firm, who work with our impact portfolio managers to ensure that each underlying holding meets the respective fund’s impact criteria.
- Assessed our impact monitoring as “advanced,” citing our annual reporting of impact KPIs and an internal feedback loop that ensures insights from impact data analysis can help influence research and engagement priorities for our impact funds.
While we are proud of our achievements and BlueMark verification, we also recognize the importance of continued diligence and improvement. For example, we plan to focus on the better sharing of lessons learned between our impact investing teams.
As we look forward to the next decade of impact investing at Wellington, we remain committed to advancing our impact measurement and management practice. Aligning with industry standards and best practices can not only help us attract capital to public-market impact investing and deliver competitive outcomes for our clients, but can help ensure that we are making a meaningful, quantifiable difference for society and the environment.
We are delighted with the strong scores we achieved in the BlueMark assessment. This independent validation confirms that impact measurement and management is a core part of our investment process and that we are performing well compared to our peers. We are proud to align with common standards in the impact investing industry, which we believe can attract interest to these important strategies.”
After a decade of dedicated impact investing in equity markets, achieving these strong scores in BlueMark verification is a testament to our commitment to transparency and accountability. We are thrilled with this recognition, as it underscores our efforts to create meaningful, positive change in the world — which we look forward to doing for many more years."
This verification is testimony to the great work our Impact Measurement & Management team does. It has reaffirmed the benefit of keeping our reporting in-house, as this has proven to be an additional lens for us to look more deeply at our investments and improve our security selection. We hope that this assessment will help us stay at the forefront of impact investing.”
1As of December 2024 | Source: Wellington Management.
Wellington Management engaged BlueMark to independently verify the alignment of our impact management (IM) system with industry best practices. BlueMark’s assessment findings cover both areas of strength and areas for improvement, as reflected in the Verifier Statement. Wellington Management did pay a fee for the verification.
BlueMark’s full assessment methodology, based on its professional judgment, consisted of:
1. Assessment of the IM system in relation to the impact investing industry best practices, using BlueMark’s proprietary rubric, and examining processes and policies against the following criteria:
> Compliance of the IM system with a threshold level of practice
> Quality of the IM system’s design in terms of its consistency and robustness
> Depth of subcomponents of the system, focused on completeness
2. Interviews with Wellington staff responsible for defining and implementing the IM system.
3. Testing of selected Wellington transactions to check the application of the IM system.
4. Delivery of detailed assessment findings to Wellington, outlining areas of strong alignment and recommended improvement, as well as BlueMark’s proprietary benchmark ratings on the extent of alignment with impact investing industry best practices.
The verification was made on 7 March 2025. Wellington provided BlueMark with the relevant supporting documentation for the policies, processes, and tools related to the IM system. The scope of BlueMark’s work was limited to processes in place between February and March 2025.
BlueMark’s verification does not constitute either an endorsement of the client’s practices or a verification of the resulting impacts achieved.
The verification may not be representative of any one client’s experience. The verification is not indicative of Wellington Management’s future performance. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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