Beyond Alignment: Contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a powerful organizational and communications tool for institutional investors and asset managers as they are universally accepted across multiple facets of society. But the SDGs are vulnerable to misuse, misrepresentation and dilution. Investors need to ensure that when a product is labelled as “aligned with the SDGs” that it moves beyond just alignment and makes a real contribution to positive social and environmental outcomes. In this article we explain how we have approached this challenge with an investment in affordable housing, one of the main sectors within social infrastructure.

Prepared by Franklin Templeton