Investment strategies describe a certain way of investing money with the aim of generating a profit. In doing so, certain rules and behaviours are established that determine how a portfolio is put together.

There are many different types of sustainable financial instruments which rely on different sustainable financial strategies, including:

ESG integration: financial instruments which include information on sustainability risks (e.g. reputational, legal) and opportunities (e.g. green technologies) alongside financial information in the process of selecting assets;

Stewardship (voting and engagement): financial instruments that seek to use investor power to influence corporate behaviour. For example: Communicating with senior management and/or boards of companies, and voting on shareholder resolutions at the annual general meetings, and filing or co-filing resolutions;

Sector/Norm based exclusion: financial instruments which exclude from a fund or portfolio certain sectors, companies or countries based on certain criteria. Exclusion criteria can be based on product categories (e.g. weapons, tobacco), company practices (e.g. animal testing, violation of human rights, corruption) or controversies;

Best in class/positive screening: financial instruments which use positive screening techniques to select companies or countries with the relative best practices in sustainability topics;

Thematic investing: financial instruments that invest in companies because they positively contribute to the advance of a certain sustainability topic, either environmental or social (e.g. green hydrogen, education etc.);

Impact investing: investing to achieve positive social and environmental impact - requires evidence of the investor's intention to have an impact, evidence that the positive impact would not have occurred without the investor's activity, and measurement and reporting of the investor's impact;

Income-sharing: investments that include a mechanism to donate part of the generated income to charities or NGOs.