Through our investing approach, issue research and outreach, and thought leadership, we seek to have a positive impact on people and the planet.
Sustainable and Responsible Investing
Impact Investing
Issue Research and Outreach
Sustainable and Responsible Investing
At Bailard, we strive to build sustainable and responsible investment portfolios to align our clients’ values with their financial objectives. Our intention is to build portfolios that perform better on sustainable and responsible investing metrics than their benchmarks, and that avoid companies with egregious patterns of corporate behavior. Our process combines our proprietary NFI Capture scoring framework with suitability assessments as well as product and industry screens. Our aim is that our portfolios do less harm to society and the planet, while also reducing exposure to long-term financial risk and providing market-rate returns.
Non-Financial Information (NFI) Capture
We utilize a proprietary scoring framework called NFI Capture to evaluate a company’s performance on a variety of sustainable and responsible investing metrics. Our NFI Capture process allows us to mitigate exposure to risks including climate change; poor corporate governance; undisclosed political giving; poor performance on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and more – while also pursuing investing opportunities in the companies performing well on, or providing solutions to, these problems. NFI Capture is tailored to individual strategies to address each strategy’s unique investible universe. We use this information in the building and managing of our portfolios to incorporate leaders and avoid laggards.
Product & Industry Screens
For some strategies, we remove companies from our investable universe based on how their products and industries align (or don’t align) with the portfolio strategy. Many of our strategies screen out investments in private prisons, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, and weapons. In addition to including the above screens, certain strategies are also extraction- and fossil fuel-free, while others are specialized to address particular issues, like animal welfare.
Suitability Assessments
Determining a company’s suitability for a particular strategy is key to balancing our client’s social, environmental, and financial objectives. Our Suitability Assessments go beyond the company’s sustainable and responsible investing scoring and product and industry involvement, to incorporate controversies, peer benchmarking and a qualitative assessment by our SRII team. The Suitability Assessments provide a consistent framework to aide the recommendation on which Bailard Sustainable and Responsible Impact Investing strategies would be appropriate for ownership of the security in question. Suitability Assessments go beyond basic sustainable and responsible investing and screening approaches, with the goal of leading to better alignment between companies and the values built into the strategies in which they’re owned.
Impact Investing
Bailard also offers impact investing strategies, which aim to have a positive impact on society and the planet while providing a return on capital. Clients who choose to make impact investing a part of their overall investment mix will have the opportunity to make a positive social and environmental impact by providing direct investment to companies and projects that align with their values – examples include renewable energy, decarbonization, diversity and inclusion, job creation, and affordable housing. Our impact investing strategy options include direct investments in both debt and private equity vehicles, as well as our own public equity impact investing strategy called Bailard Broad Impact.
Issue Research and Outreach
As a shareholder, Bailard participates directly in dialogue with companies on sustainable and responsible investing issues, often alongside other shareholders and with the support of shareholder and stakeholder advocacy organizations. Much progress is often made through such dialogues. When a company is unresponsive to dialogue, Bailard may work with our partners to file a shareholder proposal to go to a vote as a resolution at a company’s annual general meeting.
IRO Highlights Q2 2025
Each year, we strive to deliver an update on our issue research and outreach efforts — from those we conduct on our own to those we conduct with our partners.
Shareholder Advocacy
As a shareholder, Bailard participates directly in dialogue with companies on sustainable and responsible investing issues, often alongside other shareholders and with the support of shareholder and stakeholder advocacy organizations. Much progress is often made through such dialogues. When a company is unresponsive to dialogue, Bailard may work with our partners to file a shareholder proposal to go to a vote as a resolution at a company’s annual general meeting.
Proxy Voting
We vote our clients’ proxies in a manner that is aligned with our Sustainable and Responsible Impact Investing approach.
Stakeholder Relationships
Bailard is a member of and/or involved with a variety of shareholder and stakeholder organizations, including: As You Sow, CDP, the Center for Political Accountability, Ceres, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). Issues covered by these organizations include: climate change; deforestation; water security; political giving; diversity, equity, and inclusion; human rights; health; corporate governance; and more.
All trademarks, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. Ceres®, the Ceres Logo, and SUSTAINABILITY IS THE BOTTOM LINE are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ceres, Inc.
Thought Leadership
At Bailard, we use thought leadership to illustrate the importance and relevance of the issues raised in our Sustainable and Responsible Impact Investing and issue research and outreach work. We produce and leverage our independent research, written pieces, and media engagement to that end.
For-Profit Healthcare Issue Brief
The For-Profit Healthcare industry is a complex dynamic. Explore the benefits, drawbacks, and ethical questions it raises.
Nuclear Energy Issue Brief
Does nuclear energy provide a low-emissions solution to rapidly rising energy demands? Or does it distract investors from the stronger opportunities in renewables?
The Origins of Socially Responsible and Sustainable Investing
While it is well known that ESG scores tend to have a size bias which favors the larger companies among the universe of large capitalization stocks – does this bias exist in the small cap space?
Past performance is no indication of future results. All investments have the risk of loss. There is no guarantee any Bailard account or strategy will achieve its investment objectives. The use of screens based on non-financial information (NFI) as an input to the strategy may exclude certain investments and result in performance that differs from strategies not using such inputs. NFI assessments are inherently subjective, and investors may disagree on what constitutes favorable NFI characteristics. We rely on third-party NFI data, which may be incomplete or inconsistent, and our application of NFI criteria may not always align with an investor’s values. Our evaluation of NFI criteria may change over time.