How did you and David come together to form Generation Investment Management?

Al Gore: David and I have a great passion for sustainability. We were separately looking at how we could apply this passion by incorporating sustainability into investing. Mutual friends helped us to make the connection. Through getting to know each other we decided to form Generation Investment Management. We did a lot of research about the history of sustainability investing under its various names, and designed from the bottom up an investment process that fully integrated sustainability research and fundamental equities analysis.

What did your research into sustainability investing teach you?

Al Gore: That the industry needs a new approach to sustainability investing because there is a growing view that traditional negative screening forces an unacceptable trade-off between ethical criteria and investment returns. On the other hand, we believe sustainability factors drive business performance and, by extension, investment performance. This is why we systematically integrate sustainability issues into a traditional equity research process. Our objective in innovating with our sustainable investing model is to focus on superior returns for our clients, full stop.

How does Generation develop a deeper understanding of the sustainability issues facing business?

Al Gore: Every six months I get together with the Generation Investment Management Advisory Board that I chair, which is made up of some of the world’s pre-eminent economic, political and environmental thinkers. We debate recent sustainability issues in order to assist Generation’s investment professionals in their thinking about the global challenges that affect the investment decision making process.