Profile Clim8 whether that will be a quick people in their 20s to those in dip in and out, or something their 60s, and while the Even those who deny climate change more prolonged, no one really average investment is just cant deny the favourable investment knows, he says. more than 2,000, investment performance of sustainable companies Indeed, in terms of investor sums range from 25 up to sentiment, the company has 100,000. However, the seen the best of times and the average age of investors is 36, worst of times in the 18 months since the app launched. Grierson older than for many other new investment apps. Indeed, older notes that the pandemic focused peoples minds on the way they people tend to favour longer-term investing, as do women, and wanted to live: the absence of traffic and associated fumes, being Grierson is proud of the fact that around 35-40% (and growing) of forced to curtail exercise to a short daily walk, or simply having Clim8 investors are female. time to sit in the garden sparked a new appreciation of nature. According to [management consultants] McKinsey, we need Launching in this environment was serendipitous: People to be investing $6tn a year globally into the climate transition started to think a lot more about sustainability and what we could if we are to hit net zero by 2050, he says. So, medium- to all be doing to protect the environment, he observes. long-term investors are the people we are interested in, rather While austerity is a mounting concern, Grierson believes than day traders. there has been a permanent shift in peoples views, a big Lots of Clim8 investors invest through monthly direct debits, change in the zeitgeist. As he points out, climate change and making their investment affordable and helping them spread climate-change solutions are here for the foreseeable future: their risk as the market rises and falls. Nevertheless, Grierson They arent like crypto, which has had its moment and may or acknowledges that investors have had a rocky ride over the past may not come back. few months, as a result of the war in Ukraine, supply constraints According to Grierson, sentiment has been underpinned by (notably gas from Russia and wheat from Ukraine), and rising structural changes such as hybrid working, which he predicts inflation and energy bills. The next few months or even years will be permanent and by the all-too-tangible manifestations of look harder still. climate change heatwaves and wildfires that we witnessed in Its going to be a challenging time for a lot of people, and it the summer and that are likely to become increasingly frequent seems likely were going into some sort of recession though 20 Impact ISSUE 39 2022_pp18-21_Profile.indd 20 23/09/2022 14:58